16 January 2013
Posted in
THE NEWS -
BRIDPORT NEWS & VIEWS
The radio mast at Rampisham are now being felled to make way for a solar farm, this is a good thing I suppose but we'll miss those landmark spires, we'll miss picking up the world service through your fillings a nearby stock fence on a misty day, we'll miss the footless birds (don't perch on microwave antenna). Below is a poem about them penned by Margery Hookings (shortlisted from the Bridport Prize 2008 under the pen name, Maddie Grigg).
Towers of Babel
In the Hotel Tralala, a maid in Addis Ababa
listens to the news.
Soaring towers, above chalk-down flowers,
transmit a message from a man in London.
Their voices cross valleys into the void.
A giant’s land, sculpted by human hand
bringing hope in Haifa and Harare.
A Stonehenge for the modern age,
science fiction towers of Babel,
babbling words from different people,
beaming out across the world.
Like a conjurer’s handkerchief covering the globe,
their magic spreads, into people’s heads;
a language of liberty in Lahore and Liberia .
The man in London speaks into his microphone
for the BBC World Service.
In the clear blue sky, the ladders reach up high,
whispering in silence from home to abroad.
The Ethiopian woman, hope in her bosom,
goes back to polishing the prime minister’s bed.
Margery Hookings
2007
More musings on the masts by Natamagat...
Here's Sean Geraghty's video of the first decommissioned BBC transmitter mast removed 9/1/13
