ON PARYS MOUNTAIN

One day, back when a mobile phone was the size

of a small brick and ‘google’ was not even

a silly word, back when I was still working

for the county council, and you were

part time at the university,

when my work seemed to have come to comprise

persuading folk to work together

when they did not want to, I took a day’s leave

to enjoy your love and sanity. ‘Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness –

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!’

We crossed the Menai Straits to Ynys Môn.

We were heading for Cemaes Bay on the island’s

north coast. For some reason I suggested

we made a detour to Parys Mountain –

actually a hill – the sign for which

we had often passed. We parked, followed the path,

and were suddenly above and among

the open cast mine where copper ore

had been extracted from the early Bronze Age

to 1940 – for ornaments

and armour, plumbing and coinage.

Apart from the sparse purples of heather

and the scarce pinks of rose bay willow herb,

the colours were blacks, browns, ochres, greys,

whites, oranges, yellows – and the earth

rock bare as moonscape. You reminded me

that some locations for episodes

of Dr Who had been filmed there.

We could see the remains of the railway

built to carry ore down to nearby Amlwch:

a fishing village that became a port

and an affluent town – the Copper Kingdom

of the World – and was now impoverished.

We drove home, reflecting on humankind’s

unending industry, and the spoils

of our perseverance.