By …is our sort of place – an island only
at spring tides. Sant Dwynwen, patroness
of lovers, was a princess, virgin, nun.
Her true love test required fresh bread crumbs,
a linen kerchief, a well, an eel
– and an optimistic lad and lass.
The saint’s shrine was popular until
the Puritan heave-ho – although, even now,
perhaps, in the earliest of summer’s dawns
or when mists rise or by full moonlight
some lovers will come to find the well.
Beyond the lighthouse, the cormorants and
distant rocks, beyond the edge of Ireland, passed
the Azores and the Sargasso Sea – where
eels breed and die – beyond the far Antilles,
the Atlantic and the Amazon embrace.
AmazonAntillesAtlanticAzoresmoonlightPuritanSant DwynwenSargasso SeaYnys Llanddwyn
Hugh Powell
March 1, 2016From the deliberately domestic …..’our sort of place’…. to the mighty embrace of Atlantic and Amazon, this is a marvelous love poem. And to be able to get two words in the second stanza with the first and last letters of the alphabet in, as well! Truly an A-Z of love.
Mary Clark
March 6, 2016Like the ‘where the eels breed and die’ and all of last two lines.
Jeff Teasdale
August 28, 2020A very evocative poem, David, encapsulating what does feel like the end of the world. An island my wife and I know well, through a lovely forest of Corsican pines and off a splendid bay looking across the Straights to Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon. It is still visited by lovers who choose their time and weather carefully to have the the place to themselves. We last saw a young couple on the island beach in February, face to face, him reading her something, which we hoped was a poem and a proposal. Anyway, she seemed excited, and they walked off in a close hug against the winter weather and towards the ruins of the church. We hope San Dwynwen continues to work her magic on them both, should they ever read this. It was a lovely moment to have observed and shared…… from a distance….