Rock Formations, Giant's Castle

Taken on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly.

 

GIANT'S CASTLE

 

From here, I can look down on a gull,

wheeling against the sea, herringboned

with brown, bill agape with a timeless yawl.

 

I have climbed up through earthworks

with their crust of heather, and thrift gone over,

and am sitting in some giant’s seat of stone,

worn by wind. I am writing, leaning on my hat.

 

From here, all can be seen, kirtled

in a thin mist, from Clapper Rock to Peninnis

and Agnes beyond. I have my back to the sea;

it is too much to bear.

 

There are all sorts

of shades: ones who perched this precipice

with wind for company, frill-throated antiquarians

who have wondered, and down below there,

in that watch-house of stone, is my shade

watching yours. You are bending, laughing.

A black beetle negotiates your bracelets,

scales the skin of your inner arm, clinging

upside down. Gulls yawling. Wind

wearing stone. Meloes crawling.

 

Source material: Giant’s castle is a cliff castle on the coastal path south of Porth Hellick, St. Mary’s. It has never been excavated, but iron age pottery was discovered there during the Second World War. It consists of four curving ramparts, protecting a small, rounded area which may be a hut platform. The rest of the castle is dominated by a large, wind-worn granite outcrop. The first of the ramparts has been cut away to accommodate a watch-house, now ruined. In spring and early summer, the area is carpeted with blooms of thrift, and the violet oil beetle, Meloe violaceus, is common there. By autumn, the thrift flowers have bleached to white, and the adult beetles are nowhere to be seen.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.

 

 

Done