On Marloes Cliffs

A poem.

Photo: Sarah Crouch

Brothers, we have made great slaughter."
A boast. A bargain. Blood for gold,
History records- 
This Norseman named a hamlet: 
Hubberston. Ubbi Ragnarsson.
Killer. Avenger. Viking. 
An Axe. Thirsting for blood. 

Encounter.
Gull. Larus Argentatus.
Greyback. Glutton.Terror.
Strutting stance. Legs akimbo. 
Chest puffed out. Bit of a lad. 
Pugilist. Eye. Beak.
A Throat. Thirsting for feathers, fur, feet.

Silver as sea campion.
Dashing. We name him: "Stoneye".
Disingenuous. We invest him: Timelord. 

As a Golden gown of vetch and gorse
Slips slowly from the shoulders of an hour
You seem to whisper, "remake the day-
The silver threads of silene". 

History records - a new Crimson Gown. 
A sickening sense of foreboding.
Are we to be present at a kill?
Stoneye squints! The bloodspeck
On his beak is the mark of Cain,
Somewhere a puffin chick waits. 

The bloodsong sun smears gore across 
The sky, giving the dawning dusk
A sanguine sheen, jewelled with flecks
Of thrift and squill.  "Remake the day" 
You seem to whisper. 

Nigh-on heroic landscape: blood-red
Portentious, causal. Conceit? - a rare blink
Presages an effortless slide from 
Artful artifact into airborne arrow.- and - 
Timelord-in-Flight. Skomer bound -
Over Raggle Rocks, which point skywards
And cleave the powdered air with
Accusing, god - proportioned fingers. 

Conceit? On a beach nearby
(History records) a new Dynasty landed.
A mission; a moral crusade
Against a tyrant.  
An ambition. Thirsting for a Crown -
To be won at Bosworth Field -
Changing History, changing Belief 
Launching endless televisual scenes.

 History records. What?  - a mere speck.
A gnat crawling on the window of time
A silver thread of Silene. 

Tectonic forces fashioned these cliffs, 
Built this beach: festooned  it with beauty;
Made these multi-hued, monumental rocks.
Tectonic tales - a chirograph, documenting
The smashing of the Urkontinent
Into massive, Pangean pieces of time.
History records. 

As darkness chastens stem and rock,
Stoneye sees it all: Truth, Lies, Enormity
Beauty, Blood, Future, 
History, Chance, Design.
On Skomer a puffin chick waits
"Remake the day. 
The silver threads of Silene."

Raggle Rocks. Photo: Tim Thorp

Skomer. Photo: Tim Thorp

Photo: Sarah Crouch.