Hook Lighthouse, Ireland

Two years ago an ancient sage of the light, a retired lighthouse keeper, took P-i-R up and down an Irish pride and joy. This again for the Irish damsels of Catalonya.

Longsighted

He smiles the group around and up
the anti-clockwise steps
inside the automated light of Hook

the oldest working light around he claims

and broadly beams.

There were three cells
built inside these walls,
these walls that are ten feet thick,
for Pembroke's monks
who were the keepers of the light

yes, monks from Wales
humped countless bags of coal
up to the roof to fuel the flames

and light the point of Hook.

Out there is the graveyard
of the thousand ships
and over there by Crook

was Cromwell

not here by Hook he beams
once more and sharply sparks
his match across and
down the wall -

where it flares and leaps.

He brings the leaping light
adeptly to the bowl

descends the steps
inhales the dreams.

c- Gwilym Williams (this poem, which won one of those unbiquitous handsome cash prizes, will appear in P-i-R's first collection 'Genteel Messages')