At The Antonine Wall Poem by Sally Evans

It scars the dullest part of Scotland,
obliterated under warehouses,
short term railways, housing schemes,
the outskirts of uncertain villages.
Or suddenly it scythes a wood,
a shocking vallum, double walled,
a stretch beside a minor road,
an earthwork, an intrusive ridge.
We never quite believed in it,
constructed to last only decades,
land-engineering that has worn
longer than those patched canals,
in places rubbish-strewn, employed to dump
ungainly memories, or vanished legions.

2008