Cornwall 2019

 

Church Cove. No through road.

Butterflies brush fingers along

the coastal path. Named after

 

Breton saint, the church of the storms

shelters in the dunes behind a rock;

the graveyard often fills with sand.

 

The information notes talk casually

of Arthur, Bedivere, Excalibur;

list wrecks along Gunwalloe’s coast,

 

not least the Portuguese treasure ship.

Bounty of the saint. Now pilgrims pay

to tarry at the National Trust car park

 

where the road runs out,

flock to the place where

Ross and Demelza were wed.

 

 

Dorset 2022

 

View of a ridge, a white horse,

hay fever. Uncle Jack

pitches his tent in the garden,

takes the bus to Lulworth Cove,

runs and occasionally walks back

along a switchback coastal path

of Hardyesque rigour.

 

My brother’s family live just down

the road. Grandchildren bestow

hugs as gifts, hide and seek

in a house full of surprises,

including low beams.

 

Our daughter goes for

an evening stroll in the

English countryside, 

is accosted and scratched

by a dog in a field, its owner

engrossed on his phone.

 

Skylarks in fields above

Durdle Door. Corfe castle,

wrecked relic of the civil war.

 

Many years now,

on another west country holiday

(the place was also called

Jasmine Cottage), the KGB

removed Gorbachev. Now

our own government implodes. 

 

Cornwall 2019, Dorset 2022.

Juan writes in the sand,

to show he was here.