Estuaries

 

1. Alnmouth


Dawn mist shifts
across the ebbing water –

on Bracken Hill
the tang of dew-damp fern
the stink of seaweed.

Stillness darkens
like a wave’s cold edge
the moment before its slow, glittering fission.

From salt reeds 
a swan rises
glinting silver in the deepening blueness

a fading star
a dreamed coherence.

2. Laugharne – The Boathouse

The fire-hawk has flown, the elms long gone
from Sir John’s Hill, time passes, tides turn -
mud flats shine, silver streaked like rain soaked stone.
The fire-hawk has flown, the elms long gone.
Yet from the parlour gramophone
Dylan’s voice booms out, bombastic, stern; 
the fire-hawk still burns, though elms have gone
from Sir John’s Hill: time passes, tides turn.


.
3. Georgioupolis


Sunlight shifts
through eucalyptus woods; a streak 
of sunlight shifts -
a sea-grey shaft, I watch the swifts
swoop above the sandy creek.
Across a crinkled limestone peak
sunlight shifts.


4. L’Aven


Mud flats shine
Beyond the beech trees’ yellow leaves,
the mud flats shine;
duped by beauty, I seek some sign,
a reason why my mind perceives
as lovely, these empty estuaries
where mud flats shine.

 

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