Stand here by the Sunday School,
Beside the Scholars’ House,
Where rubber plant and yellow hammer
And pigeon speak in tongues.
The river brings cold clay,
Washed away, washed away,
And careless ploughs rubbing tynes
Like silent crickets in tasteless hay
Mock the ornamental scythe
Crucified in converted barns –
Take a moment from your rush
And lean to the moorstone parapet,
Shade the mullet, the turning stone,
The lost wheel and ladder-rung.
The eastern transits bring rice and spice
To supply our cosmopolitan plate,
And stevedore-echoes pointed-in
Between courses of quays damply hung
In residues of ebb and morning mist
Greet the verger’s jangling keys –
The song of bridges competes to welcome
The passages of water beneath themselves,
Below your feet a discourse of arches,
Of eddies and swirls and democracies
Of heron and cormorant, of rook and gull;
Then, on your way to papers and milk,
Or rocking home from Barley Sheaf
Or evensong upon your creaking knee,
Pause and take the air, let your palms
Grip the falling glass’s wheel and ride
The laughter of a gathered sea. It’s here,
On the bridge of your dreaming ship,
With sycamore and granite and a chip for tea,
Here you’ll find horizons, and here
Be touched and tempted by the mistress,
The siren, the lunar sprite, she
Who goes between the spaces
Night after chiming midnight, her flight
As dark by day, as bright as stars,
As mysterious a pot as turns the clay,
As silent as an oak’s nailed scars,
As fierce as gannets over mackerel prey.
Vyager gans Geryow (Bert Biscoe) lives in Truro. He is a poet and songwriter whose work draws on his interest in history, politics, social justice and language. He represents the people of Moresk & Trehaverne on Truro City Council, He served as an elected member of Cornwall Council for about 30 years, and as a member of the late Carrick District Council. The Ward was formerly called ‘Moresk’ – an unbroken link from civic administration to the hurried escape of Tristan and Iseult from the vengeful wrath of King Mark – writing a poem a day, Bert tries to invest Cornish values into the demands of modern life. His work is fun, and best read aloud – which he does whenever the opportunity arises, especially with fellow Cornish poet, Pol Hodge. ‘Living in Trurra’ he says. ‘Means that there is a constancy of running water beneath your feet – there are two clocks which ring the hours dissonantly and out of step – a good environment for poems to flourish in the cracks and shadows. Nowadays, the mullet listen attentively in the lee of the Old Bridge’.