Hadrian’s Wall British Nature Hiking Poem

I hiked along the Hadrian’s Wall path a couple of weeks ago, and thought it would make good subject matter for a Folding Mirror poem, what with it built to divide British territory within the Roman Empire from its uncontrolled land.

Poem Explanation

The poem works from north to south, divided by the folding line featuring Hadrian’s Wall in the middle.

The top half features Pictish land and the bottom Brigante: the main British tribes resident either side of the wall at the time.

But the poem also draws attention to how the land is similar either side of the wall in the middle.

Poem Structure

The poem mirrors in words per line either side of the middle, with a word count of:
7-7-4-6-8-6-5-3 (7) 3-5-6-8-6-4-7-7

The punctuation mirrors pretty close too.

The Poem

Hiking Hadrian’s Wall in August

Painted Picts once roamed northern lands where
Cheviot cerulean mountains smoulder in the distance;
framing green and yellow.
Green fields of pasturing animals mixed
with barley, rapeseed and wheat providing the yellow.
Swallows and curlews, shearing and harvesting
Grottingham Cottages and Keepwick Fell
thistles and poppies

coast Hadrian’s Wall coast

poppies and thistles
Hangman’s Hill and Written Crag
harvesting and shearing, hawks and housemartins
above golden fields of wheat, rapeseed and barley
sheep and cattle graze emerald meadows
stretching corn and lime
to sharp edged blue horizon Pennine peaks;
where wild Brigante spirits still ride free

There’s a video to accompany the poem on YouTube.