Fifty years and more I have known that track:
The hurry down to the sea, a slower haul back
With children on shoulders, or driftwood, or sacks
Of plastic rubbish, or gathered stranded wrack…
And while I have known them, all that time –
Only two days ago did I ponder the line
One could draw between those bright-as-bones,
Those silent cliffside-crouching stones.
But now I have noticed, on I keep thinking
About the geometry, those boulders linking:
If you were out at sea, though it was nearly dark
They could have served you well, with silent eyes sharp –
Find their alignment, steer it true
And, if the swell didn’t overpower you
Then surely, slowly, in you could feel
Knowing you’d clear water under her keel…
I’ll share you no more: it’s just speculation
And I doubt there will ever come revelation
About who set those stones there, and when;
But I will say – they were determined men!
For the more I puzzle them, the stronger I swear
That Mother Nature never grounded them there.
Thus, as so often with History:
Time passing creates much mystery!
© Christopher Jessop 2020
