A Poem For Today -One that Gathers Samphire

[KEN DICKINSON]

One that Gathers Samphire
(King Lear)

And where, then, have you been?
Have shifted a few sand-grains, dribbled a few
drops of a salt water. It has been

foam at the sea's edge, soiled and shivering, held
in the hands a while, till the wind took it. Out here the monks
strained for years against their bodies,

striving for the rare rewards of suffering. I feel
I did not fit too well into this world, slipped
on marble steps before the altar. But I loved well,

long and deeply, buoyed up on the swell of it
and touched ground, finding at last sufficiency, there
on the cliff-top, staring over, watching

for the Christ, the landing-place, the harbour; I was, too,
that minuscule figure at the cliff-s foot, watching
upwards. I, too, translating myself slowly

into meaning. Here is the ground where pilgrimage
ends, where pilgrimage begins, where can be learned
the innocence of islands, the unruliness, the danger

John F. Deane

[Isabel Torres-Carrilho]

I, too, translating myself slowly

into meaning. 

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