In Once Long Ago, Jenny Robinson invites us to listen to the “dead tales of old gods long gone” struggling to find their place in a new world, where they are “only folklore”. The resultant effect of her aural images and enjambed lines is one of limping — each line unfolds hesitantly, like the shifting of tired feet.
The dead tales of old gods long gone
Far off from slumber,
In dreams they shall wake
As their backs break,
Cracking to conform to a new world,
Their stories, only folklore,
All that’s left of them lives on.
To breathe and to die, to slowly be consumed
Back into the worlds from whence they came,
An always cycle, eternal wail, never finished,
Like a snake eating its own tail,
Wrapped around the world
Patiently waiting to be one
Again.
