Le Grand Pressigny, La Vallée De La Loire Poem by Roger K.A. Allen

On being given some neolithic flint tools from farm at La Claiserie, Le Grand Pressigny, Loire Valley, circa 3000 B.C. by John Pearn, one scorchingly hot 21 February 2004 and to the blow of his generosity on this aging block. May this poetic lame stand in tribute (viz. une lame
Fr. a blade) . I thank my wife, Linda for her perceptive criticism.
Roger KA Allen

Brown flint, fresh‑ flaked,
A rough‑ bearded face
Runs a smiling finger along the blade,
The weigh and fit,
The hand’s curve,
A scraper,
Nestled like an egg in a bird’s nest,
To scrape fresh fat from an ibex skin,
Whose still‑ warm spirit
Lives on the mind’s walls
Of this neolithic man.

Or Specimen 2,
A long‑ prized lame,
From these treasured fields of flint,
Etched, washed and worn,
By the tireless waters
Of the Val de Loire.
With each bridled blow,
The tool appears unshackled
From the silent confines of the stone,
Released by deep‑ learned secrets,
Whose fractures
Flaw the minds of lesser men.

The new‑ worked edges,
Honed true by detail’s eye,
Fitted in a woody groove
In that long‑ sought‑ for branch,
Debarked, sound and proved,
Well‑ grained and fixed.
Perhaps to cut the primal wheat,
Of an autumn five thousand years away,
When birds sang counterpoint
To the beat of the scything swathe,
And to breath bent forward,
Of the wearing blade.

These stones
Compressed in Earth’s furnace,
Processed glassy, sharp edged,
Fractile for men of this later age,
Who saw with seeing eyes,
And breathed the breath
Of changing seasons,
Who passed on their secrets
While the river of a million stars,
Flowed overhead.

These stones, now confined,
Restricted in a wooden frame,
Behind flint‑ sharp glass,
Entombed on a study wall,
For but a while,
The time‑ treasure of another man,
Whose wet eyes are sobered
By the cold indifference of Time,
But still hears the sweet song
Of a forgotten tongue
And the skilful strike
Of a forgotten mind.