This afternoon, while I was walking Heidi
On Cromer beach, near where the sunken boat
Exposed in metal spars at lowest tide
I came across these lines, that someone wrote
And having written, upon the groyne had set
But well below the line of mean high water,
I had to bend and stoop so I could get
This photo. Very little could be fraughter -
I nearly lost my phone amid the waves.
The poem’s reminiscent of the death
Of Keats, his lines on themes of evanescence.
The lack of signature – there is no name engraved -
Is echo to the transience of breath,
That life, while short, can still be incandescent.
Henry
I think, if you wanted to, you could stop now.
Because you can’t better that.
This entry’s got a comment. Bloody hell.
But should I pay attention to advice
Even if well-meant? Such sacrifice
Might mean too great a cost. The knell
Of versifying, something I enjoy
Is hard to take, though doubtless it annoys
Some people. I might leave it for a spell
Returning later, when occasion grants
An opportunity to cast in rhyme;
Some occasion to commemorate.
Darwin’s birthday offers such a chance.
Looking at my calendar, there’s time
For me to write an Ode that wouldn’t grate.
I don’t know why -
I couldn’t say –
But I find that plaque moving.
At least, I do today.
It’s also very shiny. SHINY! I think I need to lie down.
This is lovely. I like the plaque, and like that you discovered this on the anniversary of it being placed there. The poem itself on the plaque is not that wonderful, but my mind is teeming with ideas for why and what and whom.
I have a feeling that the brazen shine
Will fade. Twice-daily washing in the brine
Shall pit its surface, metal will corrode
The brass against steel screws (anode, cathode)
Yet fast within each microscopic space
The propagules will land, to each its race,
Of polyp, bryozoan, weed and sponge,
Which over centuries on centuries expunge
The poet’s words, as if to underline
The message, of our slender ties to time.
Yet, look ahead, as Cromer in its course
Subsides, tectonic downwarp, and the force
Of wind and weather, rough erosion’s blast
Upends this quiet beach, until the past
Looks back from some remote abyssal deep.
Sepulchral, black, the worms and zooids creep
Around black smokers. Hydrothermal vents
Gush superheated water, and the rents
Of oceanic crust are pulled apart.
The magma belches forth: it is the start
Of grander songs, the Raga of the World,
Subduction, continental plates unfurled
So land that’s pressed beneath the wave
Is land again, though in another guise
Of mountains whose sharp summits graze the skies.
Our poem, then, is rusted, flaked, compressed,
Exfoliated, altered and distressed,
Exposed to air, the edge of alpine thrust
Lets go its life, and crumbles into dust.
Henry, though your odes could earn a few bob
I entreat thee thus, give not up the day job.
Jenny, get thee hence into thine novel
And write more notes upon my novel.
In his haste to mock poor Jen
Henry muddles his ‘h’ and ‘n’.
Alas, my iPhone, trying to be of use
Corrects my text without my even knowing.
I can’t correct it now – It drives me puce!
To make it worse, I look outside – it’s snowing.