THE SUMMERHOUSE

The gazebo is filled with the leftovers

of summer: six canvas chairs, a furled sun shade,

a striped windbreak and a wooden mallet,

a scattering of fine Welsh seashore sand,

a half full pack of citronella candles –

an optimistic, seasonal jumble

of soft remembrancers, soft echoes…

But if the polar ice were to melt –

though Goya’s giants might still club themselves

to death as they sink in a bog, and Borges’

two bald men might brawl still over a comb –

we would be murky seabed here, and this

fair weather kiosk bob to the surface

like the coffin in ‘Moby Dick’, while gulls

swirl above, and the Clwydian Range

become a scattered archipelago

of ferned and heathered islands briefly

darkling with survivors.