Spring. April, 2018
Chanctonbury Ring, West Sussex
Chanctonbury Ring is a prehistoric hill fort at the top of Chanctonbury Hill on the South Downs Way. The slopes of the hill are covered by woodland. The ring is known as a place of superstition and legends involving the Devil and pagan worship.
The woods are waking after a long winter. In soft greens and lily whites, life is returning to branch and bank. The narrow lane is filled by the sound of birdsong. Fresh green nettle is punctuated by the white and pink of cow parsley and sainfoin. Underfoot winter lingers in the squelch and slide of thick mud paths.
The low evening sun
Runs and ripples
Glinting along the tops
Of sagging wire fences.
In the fields pheasants pick at patchy green stubble, hopping between the ploughed rows. The wind stirs the undergrowth. Blowing through the white drifts of cow parsley it hurries along the grounded clouds. Through the canopy newly trimmed in fresh green, the light falls in patches of burnt gold. First on the slender branches of a young ash, casting its turns in bone white against the gloom of the forest. Then it picks out the twists of traveller’s joy, perpetually wound around a fallen trunk. Its stems stick out at right angles like an unkempt fringe. Finally it throws the shadow of a bramble around the base of a willow. The shadow shifts and flickers in the light, a candle lit projection of nature.
The giants of the wood reach and stretch
Feeling the spring sun on stretched bark.
The path along the hill’s edge is lined by the crunch and crackle of pollinated beech cups. Their dry brown shells tumble between last autumn’s fallen leaves.
Following through the glade,
The low buzz of queen bumble,
Searching the forest floor.
Through the silhouetted arch of the canopy the setting sun paints the trunks red and highlights the leaves in gold. Along the steep slopes the wild garlic runs across the woodland floor. In fat green leaves it rolls and tumbles between the trees, flowing like a green river toward the valley.
As the darkness creeps through the wood the cold grows in the still air. Below, the birds call and preen, returning to their roosts for the night. At the foot of the hill the red sun falls beyond the downs. A deep blue sky pushes the oranges, reds and yellows below the horizon.
Above, crouched on hill top,
The ring. The devil waits for a runner
To complete the seventh lap.