Tintagel



On the clifftop, The Western Sea
sings softly like a girl working
home alone, folding laundry;

the pools of last night's rain
are brilliant in this morning's sun.
They've drowned the green

green grass; my shoes
are soaked; glassy water
flames around my feet.

I am a morsel for the world's maw.
What business does an old and fat man have
to talk of the love at the world's end?

Still cradled by the halo
of the unseen growing sun
the song comes again,

the drops burn on my fingertips,
old stories turn young, and
The blades of greening cut the light

in splinters, spinning
in the rush of clear water. Below me
the sea goes on,

folding waves to put away
on shelves of level sand,
humming gently to itself.

Once upon a morning, bright as this
before the stones had fallen, the
sea wilder maybe, he came

gleaming in his armor,
His hair as yellow in the wind as
grass is green, his smile

young and wondering;
and the old king foolishly, foolishly
opened the gates and let him in.