(Not) Standing Stones

Not everything in Fleams is a laugh; some things are wistful, quite a few are darksome, and others are just plain sad.
 

I have always wondered about the stone circle at Arbor Low (near Fleams), where the stones lie flat in their places.

Why would people flatten but not remove an ancient monument?

This poem is an imagining of one possible motive.  Maybe at one time, when the folk community had been weakened by an intrusion, for example, Christianity, the folk were ashamed of their current lives.  They felt confused, and weak, and knew that they were but shadows of the former race of giants which preceded them.

It was not that, converted to a new life, they wished to destroy all traces of the old; more that those remains reminded them of their despair.

I have only a tiny piece of life

It is slipping through my fingers
Do not watch me now
Old stones of my people

I no longer live in land

Held under your gaze

I was not strong enough to stand

I was not strong enough
I was not strong
Do not watch me now

I lay you down carefully

Last act of sharing
My little life
That slips through my fingers

My tiny flake of life

Arbor Low