Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2025
Metamorphosis, poem by Daphne Wilson.
Metamorphosis
There were strongholds, once, on these hills:
circles, cairns, raths, rings,
places of strength proclaimed
where faith and creed
piled up foundations and walls
for all to see, and fear.
Then, with time and seasons’ wrath
(and perhaps the weaknesses of men)
they crumbled, crashed and fell.
But the river took the stones underground
out of the sight of the living,
questioning their power,
and in tunnels of turbulent cold
thrashed and beat them in the blackness
to emerge –
into this damp distant valley bottom,
deep with the remnants of mountains and men
long forgotten,
fertile, luscious,
and covered with its own fragrant crown
of Meadowsweet.
© Daphne Wilson
Daphne Wilson is a poet from Belfast whose work has been published in various publications – Causeway/Cabhsair, Worktown Words, Lothlorien Poetry and Mornings by the River. Her poems often highlight how change in landscape and personal circumstances affect us.