Le Marche

A landscape bleached by sun
Distilled by many hundred years,
The subtle distillation
Of man’s toil and tears.

From far horizons, Sybil
Casts her beckoning shadow, now a mantle
To protect the ancient necromancers
Who, it’s said hid Pilate’s lifeless body
In the reddish depths of some demonic lake.

Here along the timeless pathways
Marched the history of our earth.
From Bronze Age man, the early Sabine
Recognised this rolling land
And merged into the countless hills
Which even now bear evidence
Of his respectful tenure.

It’s there for us to see,
As perched atop our vantage point
Towards the end of time
We delve among the sleepy hilltop villages
And ordered rows of olive groves
To find the scattered evidence
Of mighty Roman cult succumb
To mystical Byzantium.

The disparate land bore host in time
To Greeks and Gauls, and from its earth
Grew saints whose influence
Inspired great ochre monasteries
To which believers trekked on routes of faith,
Laying firm the comfort of those names
Which to this day remain.

And further down the centuries
Their message is reborn
In ducal palaces
Where music and great works of art
Impart the glory and the passion fixed
For all to hear and see
And ponder on the everlasting mystery.


John H Davies
1st July 2011