Sometimes poetry doesn’t happen
Until you’ve fashioned what you want to say
And felt its worth in prose.

You go somewhere a little known
But time newly fashions its affect.
Late autumn then, today summer’s end.

Since early morning the sun has shone.
Heading north, the clouds magisterial.
Spread themselves, ermine-cloaked.

I watch you as you drive:
The pleasing proportions of your seated self,
a warm glow on your left cheek.

We have become so careful you and I
With what we say and the way we say it.
Hard to keep the conversation aloft.

After ninety miles it’s good to get out
In a by-passed village, a quiet place.
Bicycles now take us towards the ancient coast.

There it is: the sea. The spirit lifts.
Wind at our backs and grateful to turn
to the pleasure of a minor road.

Now there’s time to take in a distant manor,
the swallows’ dart and spin, a stone tower
from which the landscape’s perspective flows.

A long straight road runs to a coastal village.
Lunch is eaten against a churchyard wall.
As a cloudy afternoon beckons, crows gather.

Turning east will the headwind strain
The morning’s calm confidence? Perhaps.
Have we come too far and expect too much?

At the causeway now, where the tide has left
The horizon-reaching expanse of mud and sand,
It seems a long road to the village at the island’s end.

Briefly, we sit to contemplate a yet further isle
Where, facing the sun’s fall into the folds
of distant hills, a northern saint found solitude.

So tired at the hotel I insist on immediate food
And soon the tension of the day falls from your face
And briefly I catch a smile from your eyes.

Memory returns me to another room where, newly married,
I caressed your long nakedness in a strange half-light,
My hands and body visiting every part of you.

As dusk falls we walk briefly to view the sand and sea.
Then bed and hardly a page turns before seeking sleep.
Restless, I reassemble the day, moment by moment.