A Hymn from Abbey Hill

​​On the eternal Whitby beach, quartz-bandaged

Wounds of dreary dreams. A blue conch screaming

Your name – a midwinter Sun beaming

Transience. Sails adrift.

On the eternal Whitby bay, jet-embroidered

Draperies of yesterdays. A black sea waving

Your hair – tides of songs sweetly paving

Stairways snaking still, heaven-bound.

Remember me not. I am a ruin

Of sanctified engravements, once Hild’s body.

Remember me not. I am a ruin

Of pain-weathered precipices, tired and shoddy.

Remember me not. I am a ruin

Of broken waves, deathless currents, dusky paradise.

Love me not. I am the receding

Tales. Torn, tattered by Saxons and Normans.

Love me not. I am the surging

Hells. Harrowing harshly an ugly ephemera.

Love me not. I am the receding

Foams. Finding, finding – you, the stranger

On the coastline. Waving to another.