MOUSEHOLE: A NEW POEM...

Looking Out Of & Looking Into Mousehole’s Harbour

Angling views through the harbour entrance hole,

St Michael’s Mount may be aligned;

Newlyn, the Penzance sea-front,

Marazion’s soft sand

And the extremities of Mount’s Bay

Are also clearly defined,

Towards the wild, misty Lizard,

The thrill of its tides and rocks to extol…

Angling views between the high harbour walls,

St Clement’s Island lies slate and green:

Roosting seagulls, alert cormorants,

Grey seals reclining

And its famous skeletal Christian cross,

At Yuletide lit serene,

Shades the dark, austere Lizard’s

Wild tides, hidden rocks and lusty squalls…

But then from the sea

I peeped into the mousehole,

Its tide under four feet but rising;

Small vessels leaned, languished, listed and lolled

In green weed upon damp, hard sand,

Moored by sodden ropes, or heavy chains, worn and rusted,

Waiting for the ocean to take its firm hold…

And then from the sea

I gazed through the mousehole

At the forbidding Wesleyan church, hiding,

As brown seaweed scrawled, saturated, stained and smothered

A solid stone access walkway,

But the uneven, dressed granite blocks, in antiquity hauled 

Formed a formidable barrier of russet and grey, heavily weathered…

Pete Ray

August 2018

A different aspect of Mousehole from a catamaran during a Marine Discovery trip…