Michael Shanks - site 2006: Page Four of Seascape

"Anna of the Celts"

Woman and the Sea
by Michael Mott

imagine a whitewashed tower sea holly and a woman
contain in your ears the sound of the wind through
the three openings and doorway of the tower the returning
waves each third second on the pebbles also the rasp
of wind in the sea holly also the wind in the woman’s
clothes an austerity of color imagine a gray day
think if you like of isolation or of Ilium
think if you like that she is thinking
she has walked from the bus from the station
think if you like of the lover she has left
or who has left her do not make too much of your thoughts
she will not walk into the sea there is a gravity of situation

whatever the sea may be in a dream a sentimental poem
or a colored print on a wall here it is simply the sea
a consoler perhaps but neither pathos nor tragedy
can be set on this stage a consoler by taking away
what even the Greeks would have left us not Sophocles
Aeschylus Euripides everything forced to some point
but the no point is nothing think if you like your own thoughts
that the woman is beautiful in a way that the calm
is not wholly deceptive that the light too is changing
pellucid one moment it is almost opaque at another
what is her lover to this and what are your eyes on the woman

burden the wind say it sighs say the sea holly catches
she must bend to untangle the hooks from the fringe of her dress
rub her leg with her fingers without looking down and afterwards
walk to the tower where she puts out her hands to the stones
she goes once round comes back to the doorway looks in does
not enter

think if you like she is blind that she seeks out her cell
think if you like of her life in that small circulation
think of a question to ask ask are the three windows open important

she steps inside the tower and looks out through an opening of slates
and there is an island why an island now and never before
assuredly there is an island or at least a black rock in the water
what should there be there that is not there if we learn of an island

how long does she look at the rock and what thoughts come what thoughts
are beginning a while she comes out but what thoughts there to walk
so straight from the doorway without looking back and behind her
is falling each third second remember a wave of the sea and remember
especially remember I beg you the light and the wind she is walking in

See also The Fisher King, Avalon and Archetypes to know more about how women were so closely tied to the sea and mystical coastal life of Dunstanburgh.

See also Modern Day Poet

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