The Lay of the Land

We spend our days being someone

we are not, so that somebody who is

not us, will admire us for who we are.

Each our own private Venice perhaps

Gently sinking facades with dappled light in our present

and long shadows in our pasts.

Offering small waterways between our noble buckling

Pathways between the shafts of shelf and structure.

Hush. The hills behind are important too-

the borderlands and boundary points, not of cornice and carving

but of rock and mountain; and the sea as it stands before us

clear and possible and fearful,

stretching beyond the scrum of these boats in our harbour.

Welcome them in- these friends you find.

Lavish them in the painted halls, yes, but welcome them too

to the white washed hearth, sparse yet homely-

let them sit on the kitchen furniture,

concave with the tired comfort of use-

unglamourous but true, and speaking of it's truth

because it knows no other way.

A grace,

without gaude to cover it.