A poem for Robert Bly

Menai Bridge

My bardic brother, do you remember that night
When half-asleep we clambered from an Austin Cambridge
Run out of fuel on the Menai Bridge and standing waited.

We felt so vulnerable in that magical star-bright place
Below Snowdon's bulk and the skeleton chains, on the base
Which held us in space above the waters of the Menai Straits

Within sight of the flickering lights of the nearby town
Now so far away, and where I nearly drowned one time
When we were playing on the rocks and in we fell,

Into the hungry sea that rushes to the whirpool
Where the waters meet and clash - should have been in school
That day - she feeds on ships which have strayed off course.

Old wreckage sometimes sticks in jagged rocks and quicksands;
A thousand sailors perished in some foreign land
Short leagues away from Telford's chains and towers.

Today up there in Snowdon's air the fighters fly and roar,
Defenders of our green and pleasant dragon haunted shore,
Guardians of the crystal cave where Merlin soundly snores.

-
gw2010
- composed after reading Bly's 'Driving West in 1970'
- image: courtesy Wales Tourist Board