Advent Ii Poem by Eric Ratcliffe

What early earth faith was perpetuated
in states of green, hand on tree bole,
the simple touch of foot upon the ground?

What early child-forms moved the moments
near flower scent, in sunlight or in shadow,
or in the wind-high grasses where love-green
induced some potent auric chlorophyll
invisibly diffused in artery and organ
- conditioning raceguard for children to be born
in villages and cities, inside walls
containing blows and cruelty foreign to a tree
- a leaf faith fading in the crocus memory?

This faith evolved in frosted fenlands
companion to the sky for dead and living
when hosts of pinewood-litter bodies
were resurrected to a parasol of stars
to hunt again the mammoth and the bear
in the moonland of the calling Queen of Heaven.