Penwith

Did flint tools or alone the driving rain
complete its holy paradox: granite
yet sensitive as a bone?

Nine maidens petrified for sabbath dancing
or sun-discs crouched in an altar-less ring
in a misty field the sea's whetstone hones
to a sharp blade; the sun tests it, aslant.

On the humped moor's spine, consumptive miners
turned aside from their plod home to crouch and pass
through the men-an-tol, the ring of granite.

I am the loganstone a cloud can alter,
inert mass trembling on a compass point;
I am the men-an-tol, the wind's vagina;
I am the circle of stones grouped around grass.

D M Thomas