The Field of Mirrors: A poem by Andrew Motion

The ten-mile spit of land along the Suffolk coast known as Orford Ness is deceptively flat and empty. Over the centuries it has witnessed some of man's more ingenious experiments in violence. Owned for most of this century by the Ministry of Defence, which developed radar and atomic weapons there, it was taken over by the National Trust last year. The poet Andrew Motion grew up near the Ness, and recently went back

THE VILLAGE of Orford, five miles south of Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast, survived for centuries as a fishing port; now it is separated from the sea by the river Alde, and by a strip of land known as the Ness. The Ness is ten miles long, stretching from Slaughden to North Wear Point. It is overlooked by a 12th-century castle, and is also known as the Spit and the Island.

All this is true;

what else can I tell you?

During the First World War, the Armament Experiment Flight of the Central Flying School was stationed on the Ness, which became a site for parachute testing and, later, a firing

and bombing range. In the late 1930s, Orford Research Programme was founded, and the Ness became a Listening Post and a centre for experimental work on Radar. In 1946 it was taken over by the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, which closed down in 1971. The Ness was then cleared by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit. It was sold to the National Trust in 1993.

This is also true;

what else can I tell you?

In the reign of King Henry II, when the village still faced the sea, a local historian recorded the capture of the Orford Merman. This Merman was kept in the castle, where whether he would or could not, he would not talk, although oft-times hung up by his feet and harshly tortured. Eventually he was released into the harbour.

This is also true;

why should I lie to you?

In the late eleven-fifties

when the river and the sea

were still in one another's arms

and lived in harmony

there came a summer day so hot

the sea seemed hardly wet,

and the fishermen remained at home

until the sun had set,

had set and rustled up a breeze

and high tide at the full,

so just like that their sails were out

beyond the harbour wall.

A mile offshore, before the shape

of home had slipped away,

they hushed, and cast their clever nets

like grain into the bay.

One hour passed. Another hour.

The house lights on the land

began to jitter and go out;

the dark to deepen and expand,

and silence in a steady flood

rushed round them silkily

and even filtered through their nets

to calm the rocking sea.

No iron-filing shoal of fish

criss-crossed the rock-strewn floor,

no oyster winked, no battling crab

stuck out an angry claw,

the clear-cut worlds which make the world

lost all their difference,

the sea was sky, deep down was high,

and nonsense seemed like sense.

Enough like sense, at least, to mean

that in the red-eyed dawn,

with courses set and sails poised

to catch the first wind home,

it seemed the sort of miracle

that no one thought was rare

for one of them to haul on board

his streaming net and there

to find a merman large as life -

a merman] - half death pale,

half silver as a new-made coin

and fretted like chain-mail.

* * *

For a million years one life simply turns into the next -

the spider hangs between driftwood and sea holly,

the kestrel balances exactly over a shrew,

the hare sits bolt upright and urgent, all ears:

there is no reason why any of this should change.

But a new thought arrives and the island is invaded -

a radio mast stands up and starts cleaning its whiskers,

a field of mirrors learns to see clear beyond the Alps,

a set of ordinary headphones discovers the gift of tongues:

there is no reason why any of this should change.

Work goes ahead smoothly but no one breathes a word -

a slim needle is sensibly embarrassed by the red,

a pressure gauge puffs out its cheeks but is always steady,

a bird-walk of mathematics knows just where it is going:

there is no reason why any of this should change.

* * *

Not rare? Not like a miracle?

No, not until he spoke,

when feebly as a rotten thread

the spell that held them broke

and every clear-cut bit of world

snapped back into its place:

the sea was sea, the sky was sky

the merman's face his face,

which slid between its salty lips

an eel-dance of a tongue,

a tongue which could not fix or shape

the words it splashed among.

This made the fishermen afraid;

it told them they had caught

a devil deaf to every law

their own religion taught,

or else, perhaps, a different god

they could not understand

but had to honour and obey

when they returned to land.

* * *

To create an explosion is the point of all this,

an explosion neither too soon nor too late,

an explosion precisely where it needs to be

over the head of an enemy. Not yet.

Scientists arrive to test triggers for the explosion,

triggers which must boil like hell and also be frozen,

triggers which must shake themselves silly and still work,

still know how to create a vacuum. Not yet.

Weird laboratories spring up for these triggers,

Chinese pagoda-roofs which will protect the triggers

and which in the case of an accident with the triggers

will collapse and bury everything. Not yet.

But it turns out that the vacuum cannot wait to be born,

the vacuum feeds itself on the very idea of discovery,

wants to swallow the whole village and show

the explosion might as well already be over. Not yet.

* * *

They made their choice; they froze their hearts;

they bound the merman's wrists

and wound him tightly in their net

with clumsy turns and twists;

then turned towards the shore again,

and just as sunlight came

above the crescent harbour wall

they brought their trophy home.

Wives and children crowded round,

mouths gaping with surprise,

and gaping back the merman cried

baleful, senseless cries,

cried tears as well as sighs and sobs,

cried gulps, cried gasps, cried blood,

cried out what sounded like his soul

but never cried a word.

This made the fishermen afraid

again, it made them guess

the merman might have come to them

to put them through a test

and they, by cruelly catching him,

marooning him in pain,

and putting him on show like this

had blundered into sin.

* * *

Then the triggers are ready, they neither boil

nor freeze, they spin at any speed you please,

and are carried off like gifts in velvet boxes.

Then the bomb disposal men pick to and fro

with their heads down, each one carefully alone

and quiet, like pioneers prospecting for gold.

Then the radio masts die, their keen whispers

and high songs go, their delicate necks bow,

and voices fill up the air without being heard.

Then the field of mirrors folds too, its flat glare

shatters and shuts up, cannot recall the highest Alp

or anything except types of cloud, come to that.

Then the waves work up a big rage against roof tiles

and breeze blocks, against doors, ventilation shafts, clocks,

and moon-faced instrument panels no one needs any more.

Then the wind gets to work. It breaks into laboratories

and clapboard sheds, it rubs out everything everyone said,

clenching its fingers round door jambs and window frames.

Then the gulls come to visit, shuffling noisily

into any old scrapmetal mess, settling on this for a nest,

and pinning their bright eyes on bare sky overhead.

And in due season flocks of beautiful shy avocets -

they also come back, white wings scissored with black,

calling their wild call as though they felt human grief.

* * *

They wound a rope around his net

and dragged him through the square,

up the looming castle keep

then down the castle stair

and down and down and down and down

through wet-root-smelling air

into a room more cave than room

and hung him there.

Not hung him up until he died,

but hung him by his tail,

which shone like silver once

and crinkled like chain-mail,

then built a fire beneath his head

to see if he could learn

the language that he still refused,

plain words like scare, like burn,

and other words like agony,

like hatred, and like death,

though hour by hour not one of these

weighed down the merman's breath.

This made the fishermen afraid

once more; it made them see

that somehow they the torturers

had set their victim free.

* * *

The waves think their hardest task

is to work each stone into a perfect O;

the marram thinks all it must do

is hold tight and not trouble to grow.

There is no story, never a point of view,

there's nothing here that's trustworthy or true.

Each grain of salt thinks it is able to see

over the highest Alp with its pure white eye;

the sea holly thinks it alone

can support the whole weight of the sky.

There's no clue, never a word in your ear;

there is nothing here that is justified or clear.

Winter storms think they will bring

the worst news anyone can bear to be told;

the east wind thinks it can certainly blow

colder than the coldest possible cold.

There is no code, never an easy cure;

there is nothing here that is definite or sure.

* * *

They cut him down. They hauled him up

the whirlpool of the stair,

they dragged him past their wives and children

gawping in the square,

and silently, as though the words

they used to know before

were all dead now, they carried him

down to the shingle shore.

They slid him tail-first in the sea

and washed the bitter drops

of blood-crust from his finger ends

and salt-spit from his lips,

and all the while, still silently,

they watched the tide bring in

a brittle, dimpled, breaking flood

of silver through his skin,

then open up his glistening eyes

in which they saw their fear

rise up to greet them one last time

and fade, and disappear,

disappear while they stood back

like mourners round a grave,

and watched his life ebb out of theirs

wave by wave by wave.

(Photograph omitted)