Sightings
after The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Alcuin’s letter to Higbald of 793
1
First sighted from the chare, a prow
like a crozier rises from the sea.
A brother drops his honey, runs
to the chapterhouse.
On an island
like this, you watch them long
before landing. Watch them
joke with their brothers, warm up
their calves in the boats. These
are their weapons: broken-back
seax, hooked spears. You give
true report to the abbot: “armed
to the teeth.”
Remember thunder
that boomed under plainchant;
a dragon dropped out of the sky;
famine. So omens give true report.
2
This is the beginning of a great
suffering, Alcuin in his wisdom
wrote. The nave’s fallen
and the sacristy gapes.
Among their plunder, gospels
they cannot read: looted
for leather, for looking precious.
In Northumbria’s wombs
homunculi of heathens
scream and kick their legs.
How the Lord’s people suffer...
Word cannot recreate.
First sighted on this island,
terror rises up from the north.
after The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Alcuin’s letter to Higbald of 793
1
First sighted from the chare, a prow
like a crozier rises from the sea.
A brother drops his honey, runs
to the chapterhouse.
On an island
like this, you watch them long
before landing. Watch them
joke with their brothers, warm up
their calves in the boats. These
are their weapons: broken-back
seax, hooked spears. You give
true report to the abbot: “armed
to the teeth.”
Remember thunder
that boomed under plainchant;
a dragon dropped out of the sky;
famine. So omens give true report.
2
This is the beginning of a great
suffering, Alcuin in his wisdom
wrote. The nave’s fallen
and the sacristy gapes.
Among their plunder, gospels
they cannot read: looted
for leather, for looking precious.
In Northumbria’s wombs
homunculi of heathens
scream and kick their legs.
How the Lord’s people suffer...
Word cannot recreate.
First sighted on this island,
terror rises up from the north.
