One of my interests is armchair archaeology – it has to be armchair, I’m afraid, my days of kneeling in a wet trench, scraping away are long gone!
I am fascinated by the way ordinary people lived. Emperors, Kings etc. leave me cold. So when a while ago I read about some footprints which had been found down in Wales, I was hooked. It was somewhere on the coast in mid-Wales at a place called Borth. No human habitation had been found there before, so it was all very exciting.
If you want to read about it yourself, it is here. One of the footprints was a child’s, aged about four years old they thought, and that really got to me! I wonder what that child was doing there? The coast was actually a long way further out then, and the child was on a salt marsh, where there is mud, interspersed with grass etc.
This is a photograph of the footprints. They are about 4,000 years old
One of my other interests is writing, and I belong to a Creative Writing Group. We have different subject each fortnight to write on, and this time it was – guess – footprints! so I wrote the following poem, which I hope you will enjoy. I know the footprint could have been either a boy or a girl, but for the purposes of my poem, he’s a lad!
FOOTPRINT
What was his name? That little lad
Who stood in the mud
At Borth
Four thousand years ago
Was he lost, that little lad
Tears just welling in his eyes
His thumb in his mouth, as he stood
In the mud,
At Borth
Four thousand years ago.
Did he wander, that little lad
Away from his brother, his mother and dad
As he stood in the mud
At Borth
Four thousand years ago.
Was big brother holding his hand, that little lad
As he stood in the mud
At Borth
Four thousand years ago.
He left his print,
he feels so near
we stretch out our hand
to that little lad
Who stood in the mud
At Borth
Four thousand years ago
I hope my Group like it!
4 comments:
What a great photo and lovely poem, thanks for sharing this!
I agree with Karen. Great photo and lovely poem.
But, why does it have to be a lad couldn't a lass just as easily have wandered on that spot. Or is my thinking to modernistic for four thousand years ago.
I like it, Gilly! I could picture it as I read it.
I like it, Gilly! I can almost see him.
Post a Comment