Portland Bill

After another record breaking heatwave,

where we all, stupified, saw the signs
but knew not how to act,
we camped on a cliff top on Portland.

There was no grass in England anymore,
only fields of stubble or hay.
Even the trees were yellowing to autumn
long before the summer peak appeared.

On a lump of land,
squat and grey, embraced by sea,
the night fell black.

I felt the weight of stone beneath,
but in the summer stillness,
felt the weight of ocean even more,
a dark and fluid depth where
currents crept unseen offshore.

That night she called me,
caught me in her siren song and asked me
where my heart belonged.

“On land” I said, “for landscapes are my love”.
“With rivers, woods and trees.
These please my soul and make her sing.
I fear the murky depths
and monstrous things
that lurk beneath the waves
for my soul craves the light and air.”

But, standing there,
I felt a weight of water-thought,
a tide of comprehension rising from surrounding seas,
diffusing through my arteries.

For every continent on earth had ocean at its birth,
is girded round by rocks whose ground was gifted
by the sorcery of sea.
By sediment and silt and sand, the land forever changes.
Only the endless oceans, boundless sea,
maintains its ancient unity.
Even when the margins are redrawn,
it is the self same ocean that was born a billion years ago.

These whispered waters calling me tonight
flowed round articulated trilobite,
filled the fathoms with a million forms
from coccolith to coral,
crinoid to kraken.

And thus I was awakened
to the ancient lineage of waves
and offered them profoundest praise.

I slept so sound that night it seemed
seawater had transfused my blood and blessed me
as I dreamed.