Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 24 HIGH TIDE AT DUSK

HIGH TIDE AT DUSK

A poem inspired by a view from a headland at dusk that features the four "elements" of old tradition- earth, water, air and fire. Each "element" has its own metrical foot.

Water (first three verses) are dactyls (stressed, unstressed, unstressed) LONG, level, LIMit of EASTern deep BLUE. This rhythm (similar to the waltz) has a flowing feel.

Air (next verse) is in anapaests (unstressed, unstressed, stressed) And on HIGH the air RUNS in in-VISib-le STREAMS which has a swift, light quality.

Earth (next verse) is in the "solid" feel of trochees (stressed, unstressed) AND uPON the BASalt-BONED.

Fire (last two verses apart from 2 lines at end) and is in the energetic iambic (unstressed, stressed) The VASTness-FORMing, SOON-to-VANish VORTex.

These qualities can be appreciated more easily by reading it aloud. 

Fingal Head

                HIGH TIDE AT DUSK

Fingal Head
 

From the far-rippling, wide curve of world rim,

Long, level limit of eastern deep blue,

So never-endingly rolls in the swell,

Yellow-gold foam faint-misting slight rainbows,

In the low rays of the late-glowing sun.

Wide are the waves that arrive in half-circles,

Billowing round the blunt headland's out-butting,

Riding the sea as it comes slowly rising

To the white call of the twilight's ghost moon.

Loud are the waves in the spray's golden haze,

Like the world's wisdom of form ever-flowing,

Flinging their foam on the hard, brown-black cliffs,

Pounding the pebbles and rocks of the shoreline,

Breaking, returning, but never-relenting,

Knowing that even the stone slowly changes.

And on high the air runs in invisible streams,

In the whirling and spiralling ways of the winds;

And a far, single tern swiftly circles up there,

With its arrow wings riding the roll of rough breezes,

As it surfs on the speed of the stinging ice gusts.

And upon the basalt-boned,

Tempest-beaten, headland slope,

Carpeted by clinging grasses,

Wind-flat, salt-tough, stubborn growth;

Where I'm standing in this

Instant of the wonder;

Squat and scattered,

Everlasting daisies

Lift their small, sight-teasing flowers,

Yellow-rayed and spiral-centred,

As in reverence to far sky-fire:

The vastness-forming, soon-to-vanish vortex

Out-flowering day's last radiance-

Sea-misted, soul-dazzling,

Gold blaze of winter sun,

This moment just touching

Blue, western waves of hills.

Those yellow, petal-raying flowers tilt towards

The gold-departing heart of day;

All through the reddened grass they bend

Their round, bright blooms as if to show

In the all-in-all woven, world wisdom's wide flow,

As all lives above

So all lives below.