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Puffin Island

POETRY

NO PASSAGE LANDWARD

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read307 views

Over time the ridge of the white pebbled beach

at Trwyn Du, Black Point, has risen –

rough tides edging smooth stones up and up.

From the landward hollow the breaking waves

are merely murmurings, and the easterly

a susurration. We climb to the top,

ever more circumspectly, with cautious knees.

 

The shimmering channel – narrow, treacherous –

between the mainland and the lighthouse,

reflects the tower’s shifting black on white.

Every half minute its warning bell tolls.

Conflicting tidal currents converge here –

fast seas made mild maelstrom by the wind.

 

Sun turns the cliffs of Puffin Island,

Priestholm, a pale, striated orange.

A trawler, with no herring gulls in tow,

passes seaward of the light. At the sea’s edge,

in her bright blue padded coat – reluctantly,

and only partly, done up against the wind –

she is scattering pebbles into the waves.

May she be safe always!

 

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

REMEMBERING…

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments2 min read379 views

…watching the circus – breath taken, mouth
open – in the red and orange striped
big top on the Green with Miss Monica
from Budapest high on the silk ropes
then walking on the pier like any mortal…

and losing your splendid red and blue kepi
to a mild westerly on the steep steps
that zigzag down South Stack cliffs, seeing it
whisked just out of reach over the wall
and lodged in a crevice where only gulls go…

and cruising up the Straits to Puffin Island,
seeing the seals, the porpoises, the shags,
the cormorants, the kittiwakes, the lighthouse
up close – returning, taking the spray, seeing
the yacht stranded on the Lavan Sands…

and walking through what was Newborough Warren –
now a forest of Corsican Pine where
Common Cow Wheat thrives and occasional
Red Squirrels are seen – the redundant
buggy over laden with our beach gear…

and shooing the gourmet gulls while eating
fish and chips and mushy peas and curry sauce
by the paddling pool in the playground –
then making friends in the water as
Tornado jets practise surveillance above…

and swimming with Mummy and Daddy
off Ynys Llanddwyn for the first time –
as the fast tide comes in covering
the gritty sand and the still rock pools
and crabs of all colours and sizes …

and crabbing on the pier with Mummy
and Daddy, with the line and bucket bought
in Cromer and the offal from the kiosk
for bait and putting them gently back
at the water’s edge with the gulls hovering…

and finding a young, frightened black spaniel
on the secret steps in the garden –
banked high with buddleia and butterflies –
and running to tell us and helping
rescue him and learning his name is Henry…

But what will you remember of all that?
Not new best friends or storytelling
with Grandma or blowing raspberries
at Grandpa – the best thing, you tell us, was
the old castle playground.

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

THE SOLITARY ANGLER

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments1 min read503 views

The fog bell sounds every thirty seconds.
A shag bobs in the swell by the lighthouse
painted black and white with the legend
‘No Passage Landwards’ on its east and west sides.
An occasional heavy wave thumps the beach.

I climb the high bank of sea-smoothed pebbles
from the landward side and hear and feel them
chafe and slip. At the seaward foot of the mound –
a petrified wave three times my height –
an angler stands, motionless, his rod propped
on a tripod, the line taut in the tide.
And the bell sounds twice every minute.

On the island, a quarter mile away,
are cormorant, guillemot, razorbill.
On the horizon, tankers are waiting
to berth at Holyhead on the high tide.

He is watching the line, I presume,
ready for the slightest twitch to pull in
whatever it is his optimism
has prepared him for. The island has housed
a monastery, a sanctuary,
a telegraph station – now elder thrives
and puffins flourish on Puffin Island
or Priestholm or Ynys Seriol.
Every half minute, the lighthouse bell sounds.

I have my own fish to catch. This place,
whatever the weathers, inspires, inspires:
it is the end of land and the sea’s start,
under a sky always open, immense
but its compass points known beneath rocks
unchanged, a fifty year pilgrimage.

He is still watching the line when I leave
climbing the steep bank of worked pebbles.
And the bell sounds, and sounds…

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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