Poem
WN Herbert
HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL
HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL
HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL
Tunnelling is the simplest labyrinthwhere we create direction blow by blow.
Two work-gangs hollowed loudness, chipped below
the city, hoped, between the outer spring
and inner pool, to meet – their labouring
could thus prolong a siege. Each couldn’t know,
except by sweat-plugged ear, the other’s clinks,
less clear than kings’ grand plans, those nearing notes –
twin tocks to their swung ticks – which had to mean
a door could be unlocked: an exit from the dream
of rock into each other’s eyes. Along the seams,
that song of stone linked Hezekiah’s teams,
and judged them by the tunnel’s kinks and torts.
Thanks to that zada – resonance – within
the rock, a blinded serpent route was cut,
which linked Siloam’s thirst to Gihon’s drink.
Sennacherib and his pack failed to outlive
the angel, plague or some domestic plot –
which leaves us with two gangs who in the gut
of darkness listened to each other’s picks.
© 2012, WN Herbert
From: Omnesia
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, Northumberland
From: Omnesia
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, Northumberland
WN Herbert
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1961)
WN Herbert – called by Don Paterson “One maverick genius of a compatriot” – is a prolific, and prolifically virtuosic, poet, both influential in contemporary Scottish poetry and also inimitable. Following on from the previous generation of poets like MacDiarmid and Edwin Morgan, he writes in the Scots dialect as well as in exuberant, inventive English. One of his subjects, whatever his poem is ...
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HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL
Tunnelling is the simplest labyrinthwhere we create direction blow by blow.
Two work-gangs hollowed loudness, chipped below
the city, hoped, between the outer spring
and inner pool, to meet – their labouring
could thus prolong a siege. Each couldn’t know,
except by sweat-plugged ear, the other’s clinks,
less clear than kings’ grand plans, those nearing notes –
twin tocks to their swung ticks – which had to mean
a door could be unlocked: an exit from the dream
of rock into each other’s eyes. Along the seams,
that song of stone linked Hezekiah’s teams,
and judged them by the tunnel’s kinks and torts.
Thanks to that zada – resonance – within
the rock, a blinded serpent route was cut,
which linked Siloam’s thirst to Gihon’s drink.
Sennacherib and his pack failed to outlive
the angel, plague or some domestic plot –
which leaves us with two gangs who in the gut
of darkness listened to each other’s picks.
From: Omnesia
HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL
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