With John Harris in Falmouth (20 June 2026)
The steepness of the hill
Told old hands to prepare
Distant soles and toes
For sea and sands, to spare
No effort in descending,
To talk and listen and lubricate
The afternoon walk of poetry
And befriending as the Society
Followed a servant of heart
And art secreted between
Letters shaping words to speak
And punctuation to indicate
Pauses and breaks between clauses
From Killigrew Street
To Gyllingdune, through Quaker
Gardens and a bardic rune,
A twist and turn of leaves, of bones,
A twinge between sinew
And pitch-pine Revival pew,
Stopping periodically,
As if Ulysses seeking respite
From downtown systems and sirens
To allow a soul a hasty flight,
A shoal to darken shallows,
To raise the huer’s horn,
To fly from hidden farms beneath
Freehold, crazy paving patio,
Tarmacadam’s gypsy charms
And manicured ATCO lawn, down
From Sinai to shatter and splinter
In the grip of flames – ‘Was it,’
One romantic whispers before
The plaque upon the wrong house
In the rising street – No! No!
Not the terrace! – and look, out back,
You can still see the studio,
The little room of practiced verse: ‘
Was it Shelley’s pyre, Trelawny’s gift
Of Percy’s heart to Mary, the beach
So tragically poetically alight
And the sizzle of poetry’s flesh
Upon the bone, done to a turn
And sifted later to fill their urn,
To be held in her mantle heart –
Was it that fire Moses found
Into which he flung his burden down?’
In any odyssey or Saturday excursion
A moment of sorrow, of sadness,
Of old custodians surveying
Empires of surrendered responsibility,
Such a backwards flash will cast
Its free-flung glass-house stone –
At the pavilion, the music hall
Of postcard time, the curtain call
Of earnest rhyme, the silver band
In courtly stand singing its village song
In a cosmopolitan Babylon,
The princess of all towers ringing,
Snapping tongues, averting eyes,
Peaks of caps drawn disgustedly down,
For where the regal tiara, the bright crown
Of theatre, red ridge and slattern roof
To shelter actors from truthful skies,
Should have swilled sweet April’s rain
Neatly, discreetly, season to season,
From cloud to drain – there, slate to ground,
Sprang couch and nettle, buddleia, moss,
And gloss peeling from pale fascia
To accent ochre tones of rust
Over launder’s under-sided trough – ‘
Wouldn’t have been allowed
To get like that back in our day!’
Then all is done in a bashful
Half-disguised benediction
Wrapped in oilcloth and foil
Of a ministerial vote of thanks –
The old poet returns to ether,
Plaques and chiselled stanzas
Retire into the arms of lichen,
And a kettle goes to work
With cup and caddy, a dash of milk,
Small penance in the kitchen,
And we settle to reflect
On a poet’s ghost over Dock and Railway
And to mutter: ’We’ll not see the like,
Not that ilk, ever again!’ Evening
Slips slowly down its slope
Into the breast of horizon, to pain –
Perhaps a moon, half or quarter,
Perhaps not, and a shadow
Walking slowly over Carrick water,
And a sailor’s twist of knot –
A methody pen, ever scratching
To find its rhyme and meter
In the quiet of the Quaker,
And faith laid out on gossamer paper
Between Victorian bindings,
For scholar and gardener to exchange
Tentative conclusions and findings
Mulched and watered, nurtured
From Packet-borne seed in Gardens,
Upon benches too bright –
A garish blight of modernity! –
Beneath the priesthood of trees –
And in a vase behind the glass
Before the glaze of Earle’s Retreat
An echo of a poet’s praise,
An empire itching beneath our feet,
A poet’s voice takes it ease
And sings to fill this best of afternoons
On Saturn’s day of Solstice Eve,
One of the best of all poetic days.
Bert Biscoe
๏ปฟ
