Sandy cliffs pour with dusty shells
we ease and stoop, examining treasures
inventing plots beyond the lighthouse
Yachts come and yet some
more old rope and rust
heave and haul away at dreams
Pebbles beached in shoals shingle underfoot
their cave-art characters
and ancient scenes all lightning struck
and fixed in abandoned striation
along the sand-sheen, sea-screed
slip of border -
that is neither land, nor sea,
yet both
Up straggled groves
we explore thorn-tangled softsand cushions
where the wind tastes crunchy
Brushing along divergent paths
offering choices with no resolve -
except we come back - to where we've been
This landscape of washing-up bowls
clothes horse clothes line and closed-up caravans,
where civilisations seemingly not long since gone,
might meet us;
Will we find them, will they be friendly
will they be scared - or will their secrets be shared?
So we sneak soft as sand out onto
the bruised umber beach
Black-burnt beams are a half-buried carcass
Rubbed by smoothing sand, these stranded aching ribs
whisper of a distant boating life
Examine our finds: the chain, the bottle, the fragment,
the decades that colour fades;
bucket holes and broken spades
listen...
you can hear the sea
Norfolk and Suffolk, 2021