Knowth

Brù na Bóinne

James Caruth

Five thousand years ago
they raised this mound
to house their dead,

dug two ditches around its edge,
etched on kerbstones, visible 
and invisible cycles of the moon.

Darkness weighs like a stone.
Somewhere a rat is scratching,
the sour air trembles at the throb

of a tiny heart, the quick insistence 
of claws seeking carrion, whetting teeth 
on bare bone. Night settles. 

The walls are closing in.

The Science

Knowth is a Neolithic passage grave in the Boyne Valley just west of Drogheda. It consists of a large mound with another 17 smaller satellite tombs dating from around 3200 BC. The mound is encircled by 127 kerbstones decorated with Megalithic art including crescent shapes and an illustration of the moon.

The Poet

Jim Caruth was born in Belfast but has lived in Sheffield for the last 30 years. He has published two full collections the latest of which is Speechless At Inch (The Poetry Business, 2021) and three pamphlets with The Poetry Business and Salzburg University Press. His work has also appeared in a number of anthologies.

Next poem: Outside Mill at Gatehouse of Fleet by Mark Anthony Carr