Stepping Stones, Kettlewell © SCES 2007

Lasting longer than the Thirty Years War,

than half our biblical shelf life, this marriage

has grown like coral – drops of the slain

Medusa’s blood – become, like Corallium

Nobile, a charm against fits, poison,

sorcery, whirlwind, lightning, fire, shipwreck!


From Norway’s fjords to the Cape Verde isles,

the Niger’s delta to the Orinoco’s,

reefs build, decline: the slow massing of

defunct algae, discarded oyster shells, lost

sailors’ bones; the unmarked ebb and flow

of topless towers, clayey tenements.


So, let’s celebrate chance, charity, courage –

Fortune’s inexorable comrades.

watching their comrades,

the ensign, the corporal and the private

shot by firing squad

amongst the elms in the graveyard below.

Under the leaves in the summer,

Cromwell’s New Model Army

was practising democracy,

selecting all ranks for exemplary death -

the only leveller.