BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH
A short commentary on J.H. Prynne's "Rune Poem" (Poems, p. 244)
Line 1
BBB – beorc, the "birch" rune repeated three times.
alu — the only word in the poem not written in Old English runes: often glossed as of magical import, this word, common in early continental Germanic inscriptions, is cognate with OE ealo, ealu, "ale".
sefatorn – from the Franks Casket inscription (8th century English carved whalebone box in the British Museum), "distress of spirit". Non-standard, Old English runes, the f and a runes 
combined on one stem, the e and o vowels not recognisable as such.
BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH : ale : BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH : distress of spirit : BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH : ale : BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH
Line 2
D — dæg, the "day" rune.
ciserbeam — metathetic form of cirisbeam, "cherry-tree" (the form cisirbeam occurs in the Épinal Glossary). An unusual spelling, with separate e 
and a 
runes to spell out one of the diphthongs normally indicated by the single rune ea 
.
biþ — "is, will be", 3rd person sg. present and future of beon.
beobread — "bee-bread, the pollen of flowers collected by bees and mixed with honey for the food of the larvae" (Bosworth & Toller, a definition which was replaced by "honeycomb with honey" in Toller's supplementary volume and the OED).
: : DAY : cherry-tree : is/will be : bee-bread :
Line 3
beorhtlic — "brightly".
S — sigel, the "sun" rune.
G — giefu, the "gift" rune.
bean — "bean".
beobearn — "bee-child", "bee-son": not in Bosworth & Toller, probably a coinage, "son of a bee" maybe playing on "son of a bitch".
W — wynn, the "joy" rune.
brightly : SUN : : GIFT : bean : bee-child : JOY : :
Line 4
EO — eoh, the "yew" rune.
bearu — "grove, wood".
deorc — "dark".
beoþ — "are, will be", 3rd person plural present and future of beon.
lifbeag — "ring of life", not in Bosworth & Toller, cf OE beag, beah, "ring" (= OED Bee 2).
Æ — æsc, the "ash-tree" rune.
YEW : grove : dark : are/will be : ring of life : ASH-TREE : :
Line 5
as line 1:
BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH : ale : BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH : distress of spirit : BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH : ale : BIRCH BIRCH BIRCH
The play on be / bean / bee (=insect) / bee (=ring) continues that of The Plant Time Manifold Transcripts (Poems, p. 233), which immediately precede the present poem in all editions of Poems. In context, the symmetrically-repeated groups of B-runes suggest the PTM bees ("The bees were an intense provocation, metonymic selves in syllabic flow(—) towards the bright mirror") as much as they do birch trees or corporal punishment. The apparent lack of grammatical agreement between bearu and beoþ in line 4 recalls such PTM moments as "the world is everything that is been the case". If lifbeag ("bee of life" in the sense of OED Bee2) is understood as "cycle of life", then line 4 has a very close parallel in PTM's "Beans which have been grown since germination in constant white light do not show any leaf movement rhythm until some change in the environment sets it in motion. All that is required is a single 9-10 hour exposure to darkness. Once set in motion, this rhythm will persist in constant light or darkness for at least 6-8 days, with a period of about 28 hours". PTM's "Darting and humming like bees we were confronted at first/last by the erotic!" lends support to Ben Watson's sighting of "S**X" at the poem's very centre (line 3), especially given the immediately-following bean (for clitoris), though I would equally-arbitrarily conform to type, seeing OE sorg, "sorrow", in the same place.
Peter Manson
Glasgow, 17th May 2006
First published in QUID 17 (a festschrift for J.H. Prynne), Barque Press 2006.
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