No. 38, Bog Poems - The Sorcerer's Apprentice

– Cart in Rappendam Fen (c. 100 A.D.), Zealand, Denmark.
VI
And you, Tacitus,
observe how I make my grove
on an old crannog
piled by the fearful dead,
in a desolate peace.
Our mother ground
is sour with the blood
of her faithful,
they lie gargling
in her sacred heart
as the legions stare
from the ramparts.
Come back to this
‘island of the ocean’
where nothing will suffice.
Read the inhumed faces
of casualty and victim;
report us fairly,
how we slaughter
for the common good
and shave the heads
of the notorious,
how the goddess swallows
our love and terror.