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.
By David Selzer