The House that Jack Built

the first trees were felled

and sailed in, wrecked, then slept

an age in the northern sun, blackening

to iron                    were found by horsemen

leading their horses and raised as

cloud’s axles, rafters of night, a god’s gates

     were passed through, seen

from miles off, rolled the sun

and moon along their lintels, rooted,

put out leaves                     for a second time

creaked, tasted the rain, held

the wind to their hearts while

the horsemen streamed like

their horses’ manes

into the dark, their fires

black smudge in the subsoil, their bridles

of gold underground

     lived long, grew great

                  were a second time

felled, dressed                   were sharpened to stakes

and raised as a fort

by farmers who’d followed their ploughs

to the treeline for fuel

to bake the pots

their ashes were buried in

with a scattering of grain

like stars                 each small clay

heaven still hangs in the earth

     were overgrown,

steered clear of

     called dragon’s ribs

                   devil’s cot                 were nested among, rotted

down beside

     harbored foxglove, eggshell

owl pellet, primrose, honeycomb

     were glazed, split

                  put out buds of malachite, blossoms

of salt, grew again, put out

small translucent fruits named

by the women who prized them

teardrops, ice apples, clarities

      were offered bread,

dolls of woven grass, plaits of hair, coins

with the obverse ground smooth, beads

of  turquoise

    twisted, straightened, filled

with rooks, held again

the wind to their hearts, creaked, scraped

off the sunlight’s scales with their leaves, were

a grove, grew

manes of lichen, were murmured

under, gave counsel on still nights

of open doorways the dead came through

on horseback or shouldering flails or bearing chimes

of ice apples                       gave shelter

     were felled for it, their roots

ripped up by a legion’s engineers

and left like brainstems

rucked on the earth

     were timber but the pit saws

snarled in their rings of iron

     broke teeth on the flints

that welted their sapwood

     were good

for nothing, stacked, fired, marched

away from, sucked up the flames,

hissed, smoked, glowed blood-

black, were tempered, twice-

forged                     bided

on site as battle-stain,

in story as Head Wood

     lay half-buried, grown over, still hot

                  were stumbled upon

by navigators, hit

with hammers and rang

until they were made lock gates

to slam

shut on the slow wet

     grew green, slime-

faced, knew runoff, weird particulates,

held fast against drizzle’s

tonnage, the nudge

and bonk of a bloater        were left

stinking when the water died

     stood strange in currents

of deep grass, open wide

     flexed, hungered once more

for the light, bulged, branched, rived

out of their lacquer, unfurled

leaves of oilskin, shook down clots

of blossom            lived

long, grew great

     weren’t felled but walled in, roofed

over, giving span

to a farmhouse, hanging

a hall from their outstretch, bracing floor

after floor on their inosculating

joists, which sang

to a barefoot tread and were called

home of shadows             heart of the wind

    Lamanby