Trow Point. Poem by William Fay

I.1914

To Trow Point keen lovers shall come no more;
Their pagan rock, the altar of binding vows,
Has sunk below the sea.

In a library photograph I saw you, ghostly,
Bursting in your Edwardian holiday finery.

You dare not smile, but wait above the bay,
Dark eyed, gorgeous, holding tight
Your prim flowered bonnet, a wisp of hair loose,

Surveying the wind swept August merriment,
The sporting heroics of the colliery gala.

I imagine you breathless against the wet rock,
The blood red evening sky
The fumbling dread of invasion,
Then the yes, the wrestled yearning first kiss;

A ribboned hat whirls sea bound, into starry night,
That long summer, the eve of momentous events.


II.2001


Remember our declaration, our frantic first pledge?

The gray naval gun, inert upon the cliff edge,
Its angled barrel spiked, strains seawards still.

Now plodding from Arbeia to ruined windmill,
Gleaming plaques fixed to flowering benches with sea views,

The names, the dates (perhaps yours) , marks our trek
This stormy day, from here to there, from then to now;

This desire, once feverish, too soon taken for granted,
Then as dazzling as the dune stained with blue flax,

Our rare flowers brief bloom, delicate and wild,
Spent, like yours at Trow, in sharpened summer grass.

Tonight at Souter, the old lighthouse abandoned,
No beam will illuminate the twisted rock below.

Tonight summer ending a wintery wind wails,
Through the Roman quarry, the limestone cave.