History

• History elevates the importance of national identity - as something inherent but not learned in the traditional sense. Sheers argues the natural world is where history is most compellingly recorded.
• "don't try learn this place in the pages of a history"

  Imperative - use of lowercase and indefinite article diminishes the authority of history books.
• "go instead up to the disused quarry"


  Evidence of deindustrialisation - the remains of success. Must connect to a place to understand it.
• "where the water lies still/and black as oil"

  Stagnation and quietness
• "your fingertips"


  Suggests connection can only stem from intimate acts of knowing a place.
• "at its leaves, gently prise it apart" "a book of slate"


  Leaves are likened to pages - nature becomes legible, a story to tell.
• "in every head, across every heart and down the marrow of every bone" 


  Final stanza, a couplet. Sense of connection between nature and Welsh identity/culture. Suggests connection to home country is integral to identity. "bone" rhymes with "story of stone" in penultimate stanza. Direct connection to humans and the culture of the natural world.