From Memory

‘i do most what use To Be what we shall never see no more…’ letter from Alfred Wallis to Jim Ede

When the little streets break their moorings
and fly out, fishbone trees lie down
to hem land as it topples.

Quoit and carn yearn for
the levelling sea that whittles
each keel, magnifies each fish.

The sea continues  as it ‘use to be’:
sacred and gray, dangerous in its gradients,
steepling in the pull of a half-hidden moon.

Far-sighted memory knows
all that is holy, disbelieves in blue,
holds heaven in a jar
and sees it clear.

Ruth Higgins