There are dragons up there!

Albeit, only glimpses

out of the corner of one’s eye

for the slow-sighted ones!

Foraging hypnagogic elephantidae herds

-young ‘uns scrambling about in gullies

elders perched on outcrops, overseeing..

 

Others familiar, on chatting terms,

not just in dream-time,

but accompanying work and travel

on their fabulous, palaeolithic wings.

 

Merlin himself knew this place,

his cave sequestered by the rivers loop

beneath untrodden, mossy rockfalls

with talismanic boulder-guardians

impeding passage to dank hang-outs

frequented by cuckoo and badger.

Lone standing stones here and there.

 

The mountain, all quartz

requires a breathless hike

up through the forestry, penumbral

with elfin toadstools, bright and lethal,

the cushiony pine-scented mat underfoot

deeply soft and silent;

passed a shaggy clearing, with a spring

burbling onto emerald turf

where remnants of walling, a rotten post.

 reveal where a shepherds croft

once stood;

now smothered in bramble and berry.

 

Up, up, above the tree-line

beyond where even the foresters reach:

rough scree, heather and gorse

camouflage the dips and dents

where Man had quarried and tunnelled

for treasure.

Old dragon-dens.

Doorways to otherworlds.