I am a drystone waller.
All day I drystone wall.
Of all appalling callings
drystone wallings worst of all.
I'm also quoting a thing I wrote recently for the Monday evening Reeth Writers Group on the "homework" topic of "stones" that also refers to drystone walling - by the way the use of "an" in naming "an Enoch Atkinson" refers to the fact that Janet's Ancestry searches have traced the name Enoch in the Atkinson family line back over at least 150 years and it probably extends even further back? So its more than likely this wall was built by an Enoch Atkinson?
Walling
The pressure of
the earth had bowed the wall
to gradually
shed unbalanced stones.
Until last
winter’s heave and swell of ground
had brought it
down in its entirety.
I love the
strict procedure, the order
in which these things
must be done.
Stripping the
wall and setting stones aside
in neat rows
ranked by size and thickness.
Resetting tilted
base stones, laying down
successive layers
to match course and batter
Set first by an
Enoch Atkinson
two hundred
years or more ago.
I simply cannot
comprehend the age
of this stone
resting in my hands.
Sea sediment
from ancient continents
compacted, hardened,
quite transformed.
Of all things I
have done this wall remains, sound
against gales
and drifts of snow.
So all that
will endure of me perhaps
are these few
metres of arranged stones?
Wilf Bishop
16th
September 2013
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