Estuary I (Woodpeckers) Winter sun lay warm on our backs. The grass greened by the rainstorm still wet as a tear. From a leafless copse came a rapid knock unechoed across the softening air. And then the quiet. But a shy rebuke, a distant tap, faint compromised the calm. II There in his cassock that sepia boy, unsmiling—prayer book, cathedral glow behind. In his eye a pale not-quite stare, uncurious. Why was he there? Now he’s in the grass and in the air, somewhere deep, deep in the sand, deeper in the rock. III It winds through the walls, through different grasses, slowly it uncoils itself to a flow towards the marshes creeping only by the smallest measures gravity allows; short of the beaches finally to lie on the dry reaches ignored by the gulls. IV The darkening sky, the gathering squall; all of yesterday the air was alive; now storm waters fill the waiting floodplain, coursing down until the weaker banks give. This is where tidal meets estuarine carrying reddle into the wild sea. V With a heavy heart I took Fore Street Hill. From the deep twilight casting its grace song out over the still air, a hidden bird. I listened until calmed—but not for long; things became less clear, dumbed and sequestered in Mackerel Square with a heavy heart. VI February and a late leaf dances on the morning wind. Moving air stalls frost but there are dry fields where warmer air goes, there among the shards we believe were lost but are just hidden beneath the shadows with the forgotten and the abandoned. VII Clamorous gulls call out on the night air; the slowing waves fall on ancient pebbles; a curve of moon there half-hidden by cloud low above cliffs where by day gulls squabble. Dreams end here because we now hear aloud our deepest thought as murmurs on the swell. Other poems
The wind The weather forecast says the wind turned; it comes from the east today. This weather was yours yesterday. The molecules that make this moving air have chilled your skin, stroked your hair. I turn my face to the wind and through its chill your warmth is there. The Storm The slow build up to the storm deceived me. The still air lay heavy on the roof. The roof supported it. I was unmoved. Though apart we were each enclosed. Then the other air came. It moved off the ocean, soft breath gathered up into a roar. Not a hat wind, a chair or a table wind - more. It assailed the roof. So strong that on the ridge the flashing lifted. So strong that the terra cotta finial, blown from the pediment, fell and smashed slates slid. The world tilted. The promise We didn’t start with a promise. It seemed understood. Anyway, what could we promise we hadn’t promised to others before? It would have seemed like empty renewal to say the same again. We lived an unspoken promise. Moving Out I used to think all we had was here, at home, contained. But you gradually moved out parts of yourself like belongings; books lent and not returned. The Rescue I’d given up shouting, reconciled to being alone. Trying to be ready; trying to get the breathing right. Not too loud, so I’d hear if you came. It was hours before they came. The Roof The roof held. Through last year’s storms it held good. Others’ didn’t. Tiles were displaced, some fell; must have leaked too. This one was sound though: sound enough, I thought. Wasps wouldn’t nest in unsound eaves. It would need to be dry for them. They were nesting when we first summered here and we had to kill them. Sometimes I can still hear their buzz in the dry air. Burial in the rain Rain. The rain none wanted; not the farmers whose hay lay in the fields to dry; nor we, gathered here as we mumbled our goodbyes. The earth’s silent embrace waited. But there is no sure and certain hope, no mercy here, just birdsong and flowers and mute trees and the rain, still the rain.
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December 2019
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