Whitby Jet

Black stone soft to carve
beads, ornament, brooches.
Stone, fine and intricate,
to wear, to revel in,
and slowly break.

Below gull torn skies
in the fishing town,
by Staithes, under quayside sails,
the sharp glitter, a dark rainbow
in booths.

Night flowering, a perennial glow
of east coast darkness, the poet-monk
Caedmon's fire.