Witches - The Witchiest Witch

‘The Lancashire Witches’

One voice for ten dragged this way once

by superstition, ignorance.

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

 

Witch: female, cunning, manless, old,

daughter of such, of evil faith;

in the murk of Pendle Hill, a crone.

 

Here, heavy storm-clouds, ill-will brewed,

over fields, fells, farms, blighted woods.

On the wind’s breath, curse of crow and rook.

 

From poverty, no poetry

but weird spells, half-prayer, half-threat;

sharp pins in the little dolls of death.

 

At daylight’s gate, the things we fear

darken and form. That tree, that rock,

a slattern’s shape with the devil’s dog.

 

Something upholds us in ...