ST. MARY'S ISLAND, WHITLEY BAY

FRIENDS OF ST. MARY’S ISLAND

Around the low water mark,

kelp beds grow.

Network of rockpools,

boulder shore.

Long-legged bar-tailed godwit,

expert

at finding

mud and sand-living worms.

Seabed of rocky reefs,

shipwrecks dived within and around.

Wrasse and lumpsucker.

Seashore Code.

Remembered rambles,

geology jaunts.

Soft coral communities.

Relic dunes.

THE BEACON

A St. Mary’s Light

incandescent

with rage.

A three ton lens,

balanced

on a trough of mercury,

kept revolving,

round the gas mantle,

by a simple pendulum 

wound up

on the hour.

A climb

up 137 steps,

inside the 120 foot tower,

a hiss of flame,

clamping 

of a prism

constantly

turning.

Since medieval times,

across the ocean fields,

this beacon 

has burned,

blinking

on the drink.

Years sailed by,

memories

of shipwrecks,

of Russian soldiers

cholera-wracked

in 1799,

of the ‘Gothenburg City’

and rats with chewed tails.

These heartbreaking waves,

the illumination

of shafts of history:

the rays

and days

of a shining Empire

sunk.

KEITH ARMSTRONG