St Mary's, Isles of Scilly.

UPPER INNISIDGEN

I am lying in the womb of Ennor where old men have returned, and lain, each in a foetal curl. The walls of her womb gleam with leaking rain, the webs of Tegenaria are placental folds about me. I am the glazed sleeper, the spider in my opened eye. Her pulse swirls in my ears, my dreams a coiling umbilicus.

Must I now be thrust forth again into blinding light, out of that cervix of stone?

Source material: 100 metres up the hill from Lower Innisidgen stands the imposing “Giant’s Grave”, or Upper Innisidgen burial chamber. This tomb is so similar to Bant’s Carn on Halangy down that Craig Weatherhill (op. cit. p. 126) has suggested that the two tombs may have shared the same architect. This poem was written whilst sitting inside the carn, in early August 2004.