I’m a dark, cavernous hole in the cliff face,
the island’s bony eye-socket,
my blind, cyclopic stare fixed on the mainland.

Like most sea caves, I have provided shelter to a variety of creatures:
from the tiniests of limpets
to the bulkiests of mammals,
including humans.

So who’s my all-time, favourite human dweller?
That’s a question that human beings like to ask.
The answer is Saint Cadog, Cadog the Wise.

Every year he would return and take shelter under my arch.
Day after day, week after week, he would sit quietly,
looking out to sea, observing.
I like to think he was trying to emulate my stare,
my gaping, open gaze.

Often, at sunset,
having observed all that there was to observe,
he would compose solemn songs
to commemorate the day.
And the vibrations of his voice,
would reverberate richly from rock surface to rock surface,
creating the impression that I had also seen what he had seen,
observed what he had observed:
the slow rising and falling of the tide,
the clarity or haziness of distant hills,
or the sky’s magnificent canopy of light.