John Tripp 'At Bosherston Ponds'

JOHN TRIPP

At Bosherston Ponds

(Near the ancient village of Bosherston on the south Pembroke coast, the lily ponds are so old that no one has been able to fix the date of their forming.)

In November it is desolate, and distant

from the ruck of summer. The mashed carpet of leaves

lie apple-rust in the gravegaps,

their season done. Waves of high grass

wash about the church, drowning

the sunk mounds, the lopsided slabs

askew from weather and dying stock.

Names illegible beneath layered moss

clip me to futility, yet give that mild

pleasure we feel in cemeteries.

I am cousined to them by nothing

but a moment in Wales

and the loom of skulled onion

under roof of turf with the winning maggot.

History on this dot of the map

is sufficient to make me limp

a foot high. In my pocket a poem

shrivels topinpoint. I look backward

for the pegglegs hobbling

while I walk in cold time. I slither down

a long path mucked to a whirl of dung

and hang onto branches for support.

Solitary now

on a balsa bridge across the lily ponds,

I lose all strut.

Skidding along slotted planks, the bridge shakes

as my flimsy tenure shakes. I look out

at sheer rock and sloped dune, stretches

of water lily: something perfect occurred here

long ago, hacked in silence

without men or words - gaunt-winter-perfect

in frame of steel...

I turn back

up the steep track of churned cattle mud

where dead anglers trod, full of their hooked skill,

and riders stumbled, chasing a streak of vermin.

I scramble up

to slap of sea wind in my face

howling through the lost cemetery.

To the bang of winter, the coming events -

and the illusion of action.