Gull
You fly easily across the troubled straits,
light-creature of wing and whiteness.
Soar you do
on the roaring calamities of air,
beyond the point,
away from the mainland;
starlight racing before the grey-black clouds of storm,
across to the untethered island.
Could I, too, heavy-boned and clumsy,
slip my bonds and fly
as free as you?
And now I’m alone, behind me Tyddewi – its cathedral and narrow streets. In my face, the west wind, blowing strongly from Erin, bringing dark clouds of foreboding. The wild ponies here amongst the crags, skittish in the math of the storm. This is why I came here. To sit, perfection all around me. And the words of R.S.Thomas clanging like the parish church bells. God is moving again on the face of the waters, out there, beams of understanding, missing me.
You fly easily across the troubled straits,
light-creature of wing and whiteness.
Soar you do
on the roaring calamities of air,
beyond the point,
away from the mainland;
starlight racing before the grey-black clouds of storm,
across to the untethered island.
Could I, too, heavy-boned and clumsy,
slip my bonds and fly
as free as you?
A picture coming back from Caldey Island into Tenby earlier today on the little open boat – wheeling, white gulls above the multicoloured buildings and the bare stone of the church spire, wheeling against the black-grey and bulging rain clouds … liquid notes into the air – each one a creation, together an expression of something beyond understanding.
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