FFWAP

Clint Wastling

Rule of thumb: Bronze Age cuts through the contours
with ditches to protect clans.
An ancient clan rivalry
played out across these wold pastures.
I am captivated by archaeology,
how each era has left its mark on the landscape,
only to be ploughed away.

Hours of backbreaking work shovelling soil,
mattocking clay, reveal the ditch
but no dating material is found.
Ten rungs of the ladder to reach the floor.
How insecure our ancestors felt
to labour untold hours with antler picks
creating miles of ditches across The Wolds.

Archaeologists map these earthworks
but their purpose remains a mystery:
paths, boundaries, moots or fairs?
Possibly Bronze Age fervour for protection.
All our labours and we know no more
about those who toiled these windswept fields
as they left scant evidence of their way of life

except this double ditch and embankment.
Rain is spitting on the wind, I’m cold,
my knees ache from scraping dirt into buckets
and climbing to add to the spoil heap.
Slowly the dig reveals those ancient times
when people lived here protected, trod this surface—
to feast, fast, laugh, cry, give birth and die.

The Science

I am enthusiastic about finding out what happened in the past, so when the chance came to join the Fridaythorpe, Fimber and Wetwang Archaeology Project I jumped at the chance. The dig, which revealed the ditch mentioned in the poem and its embankment, must have looked formidable with its chalk walls and wooden palisade. The earthwork stretches several miles and protected a Bronze Age clan. East Yorkshire has a lot of embankments used as boundaries for communities, so people must have felt insecure to put so much time and effort into building and maintaining these structures.

The Poet

Clint Wastling’s poetry has been published in 192 Magazine, Orbis, Spelt and Consilience amongst others. Clint has a collection of poetry called Layers published by Maytree Press. His novel, The Geology of Desire, is an LGBTQ thriller set around Whitby in the 1980’s and Hull during World War II. Clint performs at literature festivals and gives workshops on poetry and geology.

Next poem: Footnotes by Karen Warinsky