In the lands of the Danelaw, where the Raven Banner, flew Jorunn watched for ships returning. In her hands she tumbled the small bear papa gave her the day they arrived here, already five summers past. The bone is smooth from the oils of her skin, the grease of her woollen cloak.
Cupping the bear in the hollow of her hands she holds it to her mouth and whispers, ‘Bring them home, bring them home.’
As usual she wonders where they went when they sailed south in the early light of a late spring morning. Was it lands which could have been marched to, where battles had already been fought, and lost, or won. Or had the sailed to Gallic shores, sailed up rivers to attack unwary towns. Maybe they went further south, down to where they say the summer sun makes every day feel like Ragnarock.
‘Jorunn!’
The voice of her mother, a call to tasks. She presses the bear to her lips and kisses it with fierce intensity.
‘Return safely, papa,’ she says towards the sea, then calls to her mother, ‘Coming!’
Poem by stuartcturnbull, picture from Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay
This poem is one written over the summer of 2022. It is part of a suite of poems that considers UK history and life from roughly the end of the Second World War through to an unknown future. Although this pays heed to the Norse settlers who shaped large parts of the UK for many centuries.
The suite's title is from the opening line of the fourth stanza in William Blake's 1808 poem Jerusalem.