Welsh Odyssey #2

On a beautiful summer’s day I climbed the conical hill at Mwnt, finding myself a spot to sit and stare out over Cardigan Bay, which is an inlet of the Irish Sea. Living in Manchester, over thirty miles from the nearest coast, it’s only when I come to places like this that I get a sense of living on an island.

In a land-locked city of concrete and glass it is easy to forget.

Taking in the blue horizon, some lines from a poem of mine came to mind which underlined this ‘remembering’ of my island roots.

Here it is in its entirety:

Sea View

There is a mutual exchange,

the boats on the horizon 

pass each other miles apart

but appear much closer 

together.



A white-thimble lighthouse

provides scale and contrast

to the pelagic braid,



while salty notes,

redolent of summers past,

climb to this terracotta tiled balcony,

where we are reminded

that we live on an island,

perched precariously on the rim

of our outer edge,

looking out to sea.



©Andrew James Murray