Gunwalloe

By: Sylvia Oldroyd

                                      I remember

                                      how you loved a wild sea;

                                      this moon-pulled ecstasy,

                                      that would have wrung music

                                      from your habit of quietude,

                                      is turning currents of language

                                      against the strata of grief.

                                      Rain anoints me.

                                      Here in a shore-side burial-place

                                      the dead sleep cradled in sea-sound.

                                      In the church porch, and on carving

                                      at pew-ends, I trace the symbol

                                      of our bond; find you again

                                      within the heart's horizon.

                                      Gunwalloe Church Cove, Cornwall

                                      August 2008