Monday, August 9, 2010

Solstice At Streedagh (work in progress)





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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