ISLAND OF DREAMS

I'm fast approaching my 700th blog post since I began publishing poems and short stories back in 2014. 

My thanks to  those loyal readers who have stayed with me through these last seven years. 

'A word is never the destination, merely a signpost in its general direction; and whatever body that destination finally acquires owes quite as much to the reader as to the writer.'  
John Fowles  

GOOD FRIDAY IN ST PETER PORT

Higher and lighter, the heart of hope bereft

so many yesterdays gone and few tomorrows left.

Sun warms the rooftops of the old sea-town,

spills over leaning houses like sweet honey

and swiftly, as its richness trickles down,

amasses interest as does bankers’ money.

It shines on Guernsey’s islands spread like stones

to form a granite necklace in the sea.

It energises blood and warms the bones

of fishermen who labour by the quay. 

Sun shines, somehow, more brightly on Herm’s beach,

a stretch of gold-white sand, a painter’s dream.

The islands lie so close that you could reach

and touch them, Lilliputian so they seem. 

Gulls stand like weathervanes to face the bay

from rooftops crowned with crooked chimney-stacks

as, round the church-spire, glinting, swallows play

from dawn till noonday, when, with rounded backs 

and leaden steps, their ashen faces grave,

town workers come, evolving, one by one, 

from faceless automaton, stressed wage-slave, 

to dour wife, weary father, wayward son.

They hardly ever pause to mark the view

of painted fishing-boats lit by the sun 

and sparkling water, never-ending blue,

that breaks on rocks where outlaw currents run.

The noon-day gun does nothing to alarm

the pigeons by the Terminus today:

they seem immune from any kind of harm,

beneath God’s watchful eye, they peck away.                         

The Castle gun, as usual, marks the hour

as I ascend the hill this Eastertide.

Emotion and a fierce heat overpower   

as prayerful words rise up in me like tide …

St Peter Port, undaunted, prideful town, 

sustain me now, this fine Good Friday noon:

sweet town of dreams, dreams soft as eiderdown,

that hold the sleeper rapt but end too soon,

protect the flotsam-souls who, from the sea,

come seeking shelter in your strong embrace

as you extended succour once to me,

a refuge and a sanctuary space.

My footsteps lead me onwards, upwards, through

the winding streets with houses left and right,

their windows, heavy-curtained to subdue

the scorch of sun and harsh, invading light.

Cats curl in doorways, sheltered from the heat:

strange histories reside behind each door.

On pilgrim’s feet I climb a narrow street,

in quietude, above the traffic’s roar.

In Guernsey, nowadays, the car is God

whose worshippers grow sluggish and obese.

They drive the roads where their ancestors trod

and bow before the motor-dealer priests.

This year the hill seems steeper than the last

but what choice is there but to fly or fall

and although more than sixty years have passed,

the memory of youth, I still recall.

Higher and lighter, lilting swallows scrawl

the shape of words, invisible, arcane.

My stationary shadow stretches tall,

a giant silhouette. I climb again.