by Craig
I live in Kidbrooke London and discovered during my curiosities that the name Kidbrooke derives from Anglo Saxon era and was known then as Chitebroc, the meaning being “Where the Kites flew and the three streams meet”.
I worked on where the old rivers flowed and traced there paths. Now the only open remnant remains between a school and houses and behind a fence, the Kid Brook. Around this time my wife saw a Red Kite land in the grounds of that school, and I too on my journey to work saw the Red Kite’s distinctive form and tail fly overhead. This in essence inspired me to get creative and let the Awen flow.
This is a shadow box artwork so it is actually 3D. A poem runs a braid through the log slices along the frame. In the four corners are kivas which contain essences collected from Kidbrook of the elements, earth, air, water and light. My representations of Ogham inscriptions flank the edges, English to Irish to Ogham. Clam Rua/Red Kite on the left/West, Sruth/Stream on the bottom/South, Anail/Breath on the right/East. The artwork is based from photography of plants and bees from my garden. The landscape is based off photography I found from archives and the Red Kite is from reference photos. The imagery and colouring is meant to be ethereal, psychedelic and otherworldly behind the veil.
The Kites were seen in crimson bold.
Their wings, the wind wide, wise, and high,
Carving circles in the elder sky.
The brooks, once children of Shooters Hill,
Ran silver tongues through meadow and mill.
Upper, Middle, and Lower flowed,
Bearing life where the grain once sowed.
Among the hedgerows, sheep once lay,
And wool combers worked from break of day.
The land was kin to every hand,
And every stream a sacred strand.
Now hemmed by brick and fenced by street,
Yet still the brooks in secret meet.
Beneath the tarmac, roots recall
The whispering ways that birthed them all.
The Kite returns—its tail a flame,
Unchanged in form, but not in name.
It glides above the suburb sprawl,
And watches how the earth still calls.
It sees the fence, the gate, the green,
The half-forgotten in-between.
Yet when one stops to look, to feel,
The old world speaks through leaf and teal.
Listen! The robin sings at morn,
Not just for joy, but to warn—
That something sacred still survives
Where Chitebroc’s deep memory thrives.
So place your hand upon the land,
And hear the song from stream to strand.
Where the Kite flies and the waters meet,
Let silence fall, and time retreat.
