Aberystwyth Prom

Iestyn Hughes

                

We sit side by side in the cafe on the prom

two friends peering through streaming windows,
glad to find refuge here, all warmth inside, 
all wet and threat and ocean beyond.

Round steaming mugs of coffee and morning buns
we savour the cosy, damp cafe bustle
that enfolds our easy words, shields cheek and limb 
from the raw, elemental struggle to survive.

Outside pounding waves hurtle stones
that crash and smash against the face of houses
built for summer guests to bask in golden sunsets
and hear the strain of bandstand choirs.

Together we've grown up in this bay of marine contrasts,
children of a capricious hospitality
that lulls and woos with balmy days
and spectacles of sun-kissed water sports

on glistening sea, when even locals 
stop short in their tracks
to exclaim at the intensity of hue,
an ever-changing aquatic iridescence.

Yet in the time it takes to walk the prom
hostility imperceptibly gathers,
brooding, looming, 
then wetting, soaking, drenching,
a cauldron of angry madness
stirred up at the equinoxes.

Now venturing out 
means bending double
to withstand the gale 
that flings
water, 
pebble, 
concrete 
indiscriminately inland,

gusting, 
dropping, 
eddying, 
licking at vulnerability,
a ship caught at the harbour mouth, 
the fragile pier-head,   
four women in a bus shelter,
all casualties of half-forecast ferocity.

Amid the crumbs and dregs we order fresh coffee,
crack a joke belying a momentary sense of foreboding,
delay departure, complicit in our desire to witness 
in safety one more scene of Cambrian sturm und drang.

© Janet Henderson November 2015

This poem conflates many years' worth of stories and memories of storms in Cardigan Bay. Twice in my life time the sea has dug up large chunks of the prom; on other occasions I have witnessed sudden tragedies such as the sinking of a boat in the harbour mouth, just yards from safety. The high tides around the September and March equinoxes seem to be particularly dangerous. Both my parents worked on the prom - Dad at the Forestry Commission Offices below Constitution Hill and Mum in the old University building. I also had a holiday job in an office overlooking the sea. There were several occasions when we met up in a local cafe for lunch with stories of how flying debris had just missed us on the way. My mother used to have a recurrent dream about a Tsunami engulfing the town. 

A big thank you to Iestyn Hughes for allowing me to use his photo of the seafront at Aber (added 23rd February 2021). Do visit his inspiring instagram collection of photos here