by Des Walsh
Geology, morphology ... all hauntingly familiar,
yet nowhere has the salt water lingered
so long on my lips with a sweetness
unlike any other, nowhere the light as bright,
nowhere the sea so bewildering in its quest for reason.
Commissioned for Running the Goat's Halley Day event in August 2014, this poem celebrates the visit of famed scientist Edmond Halley in Tors Cove (then Toads Cove) in 1700, when he was nearing the end of a long voyage of scientific discovery. Carefully researched and beautifully re-imagined, the poem gives voice to Halley, and to a little known moment when one of the great thinkers of the English Enlightenment visited a tiny outport in Newfoundland.
Letterpress-printed in a varied, numbered edition of 100 copies.
