Skirrid Hill Quotes

“And that's why he's come back again,
to tip these ashes onto the tongue of the wind
and watch them spindrift into the night.

Not just to make the circle complete,
to heal or mend
but because he knows these walls,

sunk however low,
still hold him in as well as out:
protect as much as they defend.

-The Hill Fort”
― Owen Sheers, Skirrid Hill

“A night-long easterly and a chestnut tree
side-swiping the power lines
has stilled the house to this:

wells of darkness in the hallway,
doors opening onto mine shafts of night
and us,

sitting by firelight,
tipping heels of whisky
against the flames and the dust.

An evening of unfamiliar obstacles,
rooms shrunken to the candle's halo,
the world lessened.

You speak from the shore of the other chair,
saying all you really want is to live
long enough to be good at the oboe

and remembering a fly I saw that morning,
vibrating across a window like a tatooist's needle
towards the slip of space that was air not glass,

I think I understand.
That it is after all the small victories that matter,
that are in the end, enough.”
― Owen Sheers, Skirrid Hill

“Just like the farmers who once came to scoop
handfuls of soil from her holy scar,

so I am still drawn to her back for the answers
to every question I have never known.”
― Owen Sheers, Skirrid Hill