Solstice at Streedagh
When the Summer Solstice halves the sun,
and changes the colour of the sky,
they come down from the dunes
at tidal ebb;
ashen feet naked on the hissing sands
of Streedagh beach.
Torchbearers, handmaidens of the kitchen midden,
necklaced in seashells;seagull feathers matted in their seasalted hair.
Last remnants of the dauby earthen tribe,
exiled downriver from a fallow season;
they carry kindling for spears,
lunar touchstones, hard runes- palmed to a smoothness;
Taut pelts tattooed with maps of ocean crossings,
migratory flight patterns.
They hoard a nomadic folklore of seal lament,
great whalesong saga's.
Rain is their natural element,
their eyes flinty green from Icelandic storms.
In their dreamtime the sea gave birth to a pale moon,
Homunculus; embroyed in rockpools,
dawn stars were frosted in cauls of lichen;
constellated spirits, glazed to chrystal.
They named landfall and inlet,
undersea cathedrals mantled in seaweed.
They carved the keel of the great stoneboat,
beached on a sandbank.
Swimming in the stoned dance of high waves,
every rookery is their hearth,
every rocky enclave their lost realm.
Summer 2010
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