Listen,
He wasn’t some noble knight
Back from the Crusades
Who found Merry England had changed,
No lover of the Lionheart,
Not him or any King
But just a man
Who saw
The harrying of the north,
Whole villages and their people
Gutted, their burning crops
Ashes on the wind,
Saw the few survivors
As barrow wights
Gnawing human bones
So became a prayed for rumour,
A whispered and forbidden name,
Poppy juice to dull our pain:
But then the stories grew
As stories will
That he could understand
The tongue of birds,
Cast no shadow,
Could not be killed
So when the Conqueror died,
Rotting like Herod from within,
Lived on,
Outlived his son,
Outlived the ones who followed him
And the truth of it is this:
He was no demi-god,
Just a mortal man
And when he fell
Another picked up the name,
Fought on
Because someone always will.
by Kevin McCann
