Ancient Of Days

It's Epsom but could pass for Epping,
New Forest or Dumbarton Wood.
  
There's ivy of the thickest
English sort not commonly
found in America; sprigs
growing across open ground
mantling it.
  
Shiny to the eye, soft encircling
the touch, I am reminded of blue waters,
green grass Blake's Ancient of Days:
an old man's beard stepping from the trees,
Spanish Moss so unearthly it covers a
southern forest.
  
There are tendrils in herbal potions of unbroken lips that move
across both dew and clover.
  
I see Druids reciting psalms, weaving ivy along garlands
of oak, the incantation set before a British lake -
briar baskets carrying the trusting dead;
food offerings transversing the waters.
  
The ivy calls to mind all these things,
just a sprig held tightly yet aromatic beyond imagining,
my timorous English settlers seen thru a spate of leaves
clutching their holly on Roanoke island.