A Birdoswald Sequence

A child was named Decebalus.
He was born in A.D. 205 in the valley of Irthing,
beyond the Roman fort.

His father guarded the Wall –
endlessly patrolling
his ears ready to catch
the slightest sound rushing from the North.
The wind had emptied his mind
so that he could easily have written poems.

His Brigante lover did not know
why their son had got this name,
she was only praying
her Dacian Soldier might neither be moved away
or be killed by the Picts.

He kept saying
that after ten years he would be freed,
awarded some land, marrying her
and happily living together
just here, beyond the Roman fort.

Their common language was the Wall.

April 2002

Note- Decebalus (Braveheart or The Heroic One) refers to the nickname of the early Dacian King Diurapneus, who defeated the Roman 5th Legion in 87 AD and who subsequently died in a later Roman conquest of Dacia in 105 AD. Many of the events are documented on Trajan’s Column