The Glastonbury Thorn Copyright © Victor Weston 2010

You could just catch a glimpse of an eye
under the hat’s brim
so blue, you could see through ...
It’s so bitterly cold, a cloak’s required,
and gloves through which his staff is grasped

He’d come to where
another staff had been placed, in the earth
there’d been no other bush on the hill
when the sea came and the waves lapped
by the Tor

Cut in a warmer clime,
a well-used, well-travelled familiar companion
it had there taken root
and blossomed every winter
but, not this year

Ravens dropped down from the sky
dogs barked and growled
at the sight of the hacked-down thorn
round which angry locals
tearfully had gathered

“look like wolves” a lad muttered nervously
“hope the thorn will grow again, it did before
but who’d do that, why?” the stranger shook his head
at Loki’s rage against wisdom