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THE
CLIFF HOUSE
Do
you remember the house we rented
on
the Pembroke coast? Most
days the slate cliffs
were
wet as macs, and we drove with our child
for
shelter to the cove and the small pub
with
its pendulum skittles-board, slow tales
of
closed workings, and its guarded welcome.
On
one warm day we found a flat sand beach
and
snapped each other running with our child,
one
side the lucid waves, one side high ground,
an
empty chamber of hill, coast and sky
or
amphitheatre where the future
indulgently
attended to our game.
If
happiness comes from a spill of dice,
the
run fell for us well that Eastertide.
We
visited St David’s, Whitesands Bay,
and
whether within saint’s crypt or under
surplice-albumen
of cryptic heaven
we
were the sole live souls, and we were graced.
And
what is luck, and what is grace, if one
stupidly
wish it bigger than it is?
—A
day in memory that loses force
like
closed works or pendulum in a loft.
If
you recall that house the way I do,
although
our stage is old the hills smile still.
Alan
Marshfield
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