Communication of the deepest kind

across the depths of undulating oceans.

Marconi knew.

He wanted words to spread.

 

Isthmuses and continents are linked.

Communication.

I didn’t understand until we met

at Poldhu Cove and visited the monument,

our pilgrimage.

 

With your usual grace, you touched the panel.

Fingertip to bronze,

communication.

Someone had left their sunglasses

on the granite parapet.

 

In Housel Bay and at Porthcurno

cables rust and rot

tarnishing rocks

while up in space

satellites are spinning.

 

Now, off Penwith’s coast, Nautica rides swell.

She’s cable laying.

We have a wave hub,

sea green energy,

a rolling serpent connected to the grid.

 

I think of you

and of Marconi, that audacious cable-layer

a thousand miles, a thousand fathoms

of communication. All the way

to Newfoundland.

 

summer 2010