For all the contributions and to see the ekphrastic prompts, please visit Paul Brookes’ blog.
Here is my poem, inspired by the image of a Leprechaun.

The dwindling of greatness

They had faces like the sun,
hair black as midnight
or bright as spun gold.

They had magic in their blood
and every bone, bird-bone, hare-bone
and the long bones of the deer.

They were feather and star-light,
proud as the antlered hart,
wise as the oldest salmon,
and flowers sprang in the prints of their feet.

They were music and poetry,
sweet as honey, dark as the ocean,
and their words shaped the world,

but they shrank in the cold
sin-washing of the priests,
twisted by the conqueror’s mockery.

They took their magic to another place,
bright, green and blue as river water,
and in their place, they left a gnome.