SAPPHIRE

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.

 

 

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