Retreat
Silver-pale, solitary,
hewn perhaps from
two giant breakwaters,
It stands, leaning backwards,
powerful on
the crest
Of a parched hill. Beams
bleached oak
binding back sea-flood
At Rhyl, now rooted in
the dung-sweet
infested earth. The only
skulls
Those of oatmeal sheep
who crop crusts of
dry grass and scatter,
Heads held high in disdain,
arched haunches
swaying, as I approach,
Talking aloud. Glad to
hear the sound of a
voice outside my head.
Preparing my search for
gifts to bring back
to you
I perch on a boulder, noting
in my
policeman's notebook:
Snowdon still in mist,
her foothills inked
gently grey-green on horizon.
faint hum of motorway traffic.
Loneliness - even sheep
won't answer my
call; nature is never spent.
I stare down through the
beech leaves
which barely camouflage
The mock-gothic turret
of the Jesuit house
where Hopkins broke silence
With The Wreck of the Deutschland;
fished; and was ordained
priest.
Delivering his first sermon
in a chapel,
converted now to a dining
room.
Where we, retreatants,
pick pink linen
napkins from a wooden rack,
And file up to the hot
plate, suppering at
circular tables.
Our eight-day silence broken
only by the
scraping of stainless steel
on china;
And a scratched recording
of The Magic
Flute crackling from speakers,
Concealed in the darkly-carved
pulpit from
where poet once preached.
Behind me, the horizontal
beam of the
cross is dripping tears
of solidified
Black tar, and the vertical
beam is defaced,
splashed white with paint.
At the intersection of
the two beams are
four rusty nails hammered
Into a square, holding
an invisible or a lost
sign. I crouch spiked by
gorse
To find my presents for
you who are
leaving for upstate Seattle
and a cabin
In a mountain where, you
say, there are
bears. Where you will be
within earshot
Of a woman surnamed Knight
who channels
the words of Ramtha
Reminding you 'of a heritage
which you
forgot long ago'.
In my purse-belt I stash
away a feather, a
stone, and a skein of ivory
wool,
Which I inspect for nits
much like a mother
might her child's hair.
I want my feather to be
a windhover's;
probably it is a gull's.
I haven't a clue about
birds, and need a
guide to chart distinctness.
The stone too is ordinary:
small, charcoal,
neither jagged nor entirely
smooth,
With two purple lines veining
into one.
This I hope shall represent
for you
An end to dualism. I note:
Extreme
beauty. The sun rising
behind the cross.
The crown of the wild hill
might be a
prairie; where - out of
the blue -
A wagon may advance travelling
west.
And suddenly I remember
The Who
and Tommy;
And (out-thrilling all
bird-song) I scream,
high into the air, Tm free'.
HEATHER LAWTON
