A Walk to the Gulvas

1

Ness, shall we go for a walk?

I’ll take you up to the Gulvas

You never really got to.

Put on your lovely yellow

Oilskin to meet the weather.

2

This bit of the road, Ness,

We know well, is different

Continually. Macadam

Has not smoothed it to death.

When the light keeks out, the road

Answers and shines up blue.

I thought we might have seen

Willie Wagtail from earlier.

Nessie, how many steps

Do we take from pole to pole

Going up this hill? I see

Your Blantyre rainy lashes.

The five wires are humming

Every good boy deserves

Favour. We have ascended

Into a mist. And this

Is where we swim the brambles

And catch the path across

The late or early moor

Between us and the Gulvas.

3

Hold on to me and step

Over the world’s thorns.

We shall soon be on

The yellow and emerald moss

Of the Penwith moor.

Are you all right beside me?

What’s your name and age

As though I did not know.

Are we getting older

At different speeds differently?

4

No, that’s not it. The Gulvas

Cannot be seen from here.

Have we left it too late

Maybe the Gulvas is too

Far on a day like this

For us what are our ages

What are our foreign names

What are we doing here

Wet and scratched with the Gulvas

Moving away before us?

5

Let us go back. Reader,

You who have observed

Us at your price from word

To word through the rain,

Dont be put down. I’ll come

Again and take you on

The great walk to the Gulvas.

Be well wrapped up against

The high moor and the brambles.