We came here first maybe fifty years ago –
Porth Trecastell aka Cable Bay
(on Ynys Môn aka Anglesey) –
a small Iron Age hill fort on one headland,
a Neolithic grave on the other,
and a telephone cable to Ireland
in between. This bank holiday the bay
is busy – paddlers, bathers, canoeists.
In the gated burial chamber –
Barclodiad y Gawres, which translates,
‘the full apron of the giantess’ –
its prehistoric graffiti secured
against vandals, a pair of swallows
has nested. We can hear the nestlings.
Seeing us, the parents, beaks replete
with insects, perch on the outer gate,
waiting patiently for the lubberly,
flightless giants – one with a movable eye
that shafts like lightning – to depart.
When we do, they fly past, a steel-blue flash,
an iridescence, into the dark tomb.
From the dolmen’s entrance, on the horizon
is Holyhead Mountain. If the earth were flat,
we could see to Ireland – where the weathers
and the myths are made. In sunlight as sharp as
wings, the sea is so many shades of blue:
cerulean, aquamarine, cobalt,
amethyst, turquoise – and sapphire,
a token of all our married years.