(A legend of the Christmas rose)
The old man on the Tor that morning
Woke up, he said, to find his mooring
Had overnight become a hill,
The lake scattered with piles of land
Become a valley. A lorry undid
The tiny tangled road below.
Where was his trading ship ? he asked,
And the godchild who had travelled with him ?
I offered to help him search for them.
He did his best to follow me,
Tired and stumbling down the slope.
The stiles and precipitous ditches
Pitched us above the landscape
And his legendary journey.
I looked back up for him. Far off
He loomed above the shifting sky,
The figure on a dipping prow
Fastened to its endless quest.
I never saw him in the town.
There are stories of a buried chalice,
Of water rusty from holy blood
Of well-shaft stone some mason fashioned
To Egyptian measurements; the tale
Of an ancient man who made the cows
That balance on the steep hillside
Restless with his weariness.
The staff he stuck in the earth to moor
His vanished ship is now a rose,
Blossoming in winter white as sail.
