Leylines
(In loving memory of Amanda)
And that was the top of the Tor,
where all that masculine energy
direct from St. Michael’s leyline
had sluiced the strength from you.
Especially cruel, only a day after
your swollen ankles were soothed
in the healing divine-feminine wash
at Chalice Well lower down the hill
on the curative leyline of St. Mary.
And five months later, that long &
drawn-out, fatal struggle at Queen
Elizabeth’s. Do we live to die to live?
And, in between, float? At the place
of tryst ratify my presence, love. As
we reconnoitre for Avalon’s original
location, as if ready to embark from
the Somerset Levels to some other-
worldly, fabled Atlantis where, in that
sea of mist, all our leylines converge.
Mark Wilson has published five poetry collections: Quartet For the End of Time (Editions du Zaporogue, 2011), Passio (Editions du Zaporogue, 2013), The Angel of History (Leaky Boot Press, 2013), Illuminations (Leaky Boot Press, 2016) & Paolo & Francesca in a Colder Climate (Black Herald Press, 2025). He is the author of a verse-drama, One Eucalyptus Seed, about the arrest and incarceration of Ezra Pound after World War Two, as well as a tragi-comedy, Arden. His poems and articles have appeared in a wide range of international magazines.
Amethyst Review 