The ancient shore

Newport Bay in Pembrokeshire. Watercolour painting.

 

The Ancient Shore.

 

Escape the playground of Yr Traeth Mawr,

with cars, and children romping in the surf,

to where the pink starred centuary

is in flower along the dunes

amid the sheep-nipped turf,

and find, alone, the pristine, ancient shore:

the rippled sand, echo of mackerel sky;

the streams and pools unchanged,

from long before the spread of humankind.

 

Above the high tideline, rust-red and blue,

the slabs of slate, formed

when the ever sinking earthly crust

built up grit from rivers' yearly spate,

and mountain heaving forces,

shook and thrust the layered beds,

cracked and bent the rocks, and left them twisted,

standing on their edge.

Then tide on tide cut deep within the blocks

and tunnelled far below the harder ledge,

gouged out the softer shales.

 

The constant drip of water from the overhanging ferns:

hypnotic beat against the splashing rip

of silver pystyll in the cwm;

the terns call harshly as they dive

into the distant hissing murmur of incoming waves;

like shells' internal spirals keep,

insistent, the ocean's sound,

captive within the caves.

 

Beyond the wrack and kelp beds of the bay,

the carreg points towards the northern star.

Morfa's ravens croak above the spray on headland,

pebble strand and sandy bar.

And ever on the river winds beneath the moorland heights

of golden broom and gorse, with berried whin

and scented purple heath, to shoreline's mouth

from mountain's springing source.

 

(Published in "The Lie of the Land" Cinnamon Press).

 

 

 

 

Done