Giles Watson's poetry and prose
The White Horse Among the Stars
The White Horse Among the Stars
The White Horse spent half an hour this morning
Watching Red Arrows. He had to do it; he was pinned
To the hill, and it is inadvisable to blink, with
So many people standing in your face. They spewed
Out red, white and blue smoke, and horses
Of flesh and blood also turned to watch them:
Every stallion and nag for miles around, facing
In the same direction. The White Horse doesn’t need
Wikipedia to know the history. 1969:
A gnat hit trees – one fatality. 1971:
Two gnats collided – four men dead.
1987: a hawk crashed into a house –
No one died. Insurance paid. 2011:
Crash, death. Still under investigation.
Iraq War: a hundred and fourteen thousand, seven
Hundred and thirty one civilians dead. Afghan
Istan. And counting.
The White Horse doesn’t understand: he hasn’t
Taken sides in wars, or watched Top Gun, and
The sound of children crying makes the fossils
In him grind. When helicopters took folks up
There to glimpse him from the air, the whole
Thing took three minutes, from start to finish.
His making took an age. It began
With sea-things’ lives. He was born
Out of them, with the whole hill:
The Downs formed in the ocean swell.
Seas receded. Glaciers gouged
Out the Manger. Men emerged.
They saw his form long before
They cut it, looked from afar
And discerned his arching spine
On a windy landscape, strewn
With thistles. They paced him out
From ear to tail, etched his throat
With picks, dug his body deep.
And when pilots and passengers
Are asleep, the fossils resonate,
The eyeball widens. The White Horse peels
Himself from the hillside, looks down
On village, orchard, town, blesses
That child who helped to scour him
With her little trowel, arches himself.
His forelegs grapple with the turf, as though
He was some imago emerging. That
Eyeball revolves. And at once he is leaping,
Catching thermals like a peregrine,
Slicing through clouds, slipping out
Of our atmosphere, leaving the merest
Smear of chalk, cavorting with Arcturus,
Aligning the Pole-Star with his eye,
Seeking Betelgeuse in the armpit
Of Orion. Earth becomes invisible.
Each fossil becomes a star.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2012. This final poem in the series was completed on the second day of the White Horse Country Show, in the fields between Uffington and Fawler. Large crowds gathered on White Horse Hill to watch the “Red Arrow” stunt fliers from the R.A.F., and helicopter flights to view the White Horse from the air cost more than ten pounds a minute. “Gnats” and “hawks” are the types of aeroplanes flown as Red Arrows.
The White Horse Among the Stars
The White Horse Among the Stars
The White Horse spent half an hour this morning
Watching Red Arrows. He had to do it; he was pinned
To the hill, and it is inadvisable to blink, with
So many people standing in your face. They spewed
Out red, white and blue smoke, and horses
Of flesh and blood also turned to watch them:
Every stallion and nag for miles around, facing
In the same direction. The White Horse doesn’t need
Wikipedia to know the history. 1969:
A gnat hit trees – one fatality. 1971:
Two gnats collided – four men dead.
1987: a hawk crashed into a house –
No one died. Insurance paid. 2011:
Crash, death. Still under investigation.
Iraq War: a hundred and fourteen thousand, seven
Hundred and thirty one civilians dead. Afghan
Istan. And counting.
The White Horse doesn’t understand: he hasn’t
Taken sides in wars, or watched Top Gun, and
The sound of children crying makes the fossils
In him grind. When helicopters took folks up
There to glimpse him from the air, the whole
Thing took three minutes, from start to finish.
His making took an age. It began
With sea-things’ lives. He was born
Out of them, with the whole hill:
The Downs formed in the ocean swell.
Seas receded. Glaciers gouged
Out the Manger. Men emerged.
They saw his form long before
They cut it, looked from afar
And discerned his arching spine
On a windy landscape, strewn
With thistles. They paced him out
From ear to tail, etched his throat
With picks, dug his body deep.
And when pilots and passengers
Are asleep, the fossils resonate,
The eyeball widens. The White Horse peels
Himself from the hillside, looks down
On village, orchard, town, blesses
That child who helped to scour him
With her little trowel, arches himself.
His forelegs grapple with the turf, as though
He was some imago emerging. That
Eyeball revolves. And at once he is leaping,
Catching thermals like a peregrine,
Slicing through clouds, slipping out
Of our atmosphere, leaving the merest
Smear of chalk, cavorting with Arcturus,
Aligning the Pole-Star with his eye,
Seeking Betelgeuse in the armpit
Of Orion. Earth becomes invisible.
Each fossil becomes a star.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2012. This final poem in the series was completed on the second day of the White Horse Country Show, in the fields between Uffington and Fawler. Large crowds gathered on White Horse Hill to watch the “Red Arrow” stunt fliers from the R.A.F., and helicopter flights to view the White Horse from the air cost more than ten pounds a minute. “Gnats” and “hawks” are the types of aeroplanes flown as Red Arrows.