Harbour, headland, open sea.
Tide turning. Spindrift carried
on whipping wind. Force Eight
approaching. Darkness falls.

Beatrice Apha flare
blazing. Crabbers ride
to doubled ropes. Lighthouse
watching, winter waiting.

Salted blood. Gull grey wing
dipping. Lobsters caught and
memory flooded. Homeward
pointing, homeward pointing.

Dat by day the grey clouds hung
Round bails in wetness rolled
Hedgerows stood wind-harvested
The fields of colour bleached

Even the sea seemed heavy
Thick with slate
I doubted that life it held
As it fought against the dark cliffs

In town: Oily puddles formed
Empty cans clattered through Poundstretcher carpark
Cold wind Wick River whipped up
The swallows had left

I darkened....... Until

Robin flashed his red in conifer green
Felicity's rain-soaked hair clung to her face as she laughed
And the geese shared Heaven with the Milky Way
So that I,
                Could raise my spirit to the approaching storm.

At Gordon Hill
I climbed aboard
A lazy day
For being bored

Enfield sweltered
Beneath the sun
Then I saw her
She looked like fun

Her torn blue jeans
Showed sun-brown thigh
As Hertfordshire
Slipped quickly by

An English miss
Of that no doubt
My usual type
Is short and stout

But on that train
Just her and I
Her slender form
Did keep my eye

Both Welwyn bound
A summer's day
I fantasised
Us in the hay

That kept the shade
Of her fair hair
They put her there
For me to stare

A poster girl
She was you see
On British Rail's
Class Three One Three.

My river pebble
Through a clear pool
Reflection muddied
I saw you, picked you up

Admiring with my eyes
Your smooth surfaces
Pressing with my fingers
Your hard heart.

Across the wetting lawn and down the darkening path
Through flower-fled weigela, hawthorn berry red
Comes dusk
Making a bed for night 'neath settled robin's wing
Pressing the back lit kitchen panes of ivy frame
Drawing me out in prayer, giving thanks that I came.

Where laburnum dreams of slumber and blackbirds notes
Lie low within the moss-green breeze-block walls
Of home
Strong sanctuary built beneath a cathedral sky
St Boniface, Tooting now to memory lost
Yet in this church of green there is Chalice and Host

Then darkness falls complete, robs the shadows power
Honeysuckle fills the air, incense for this time
And peace
Descends from the heavens so the owl becomes dove
Beyond street lamps are stars, night settles low and long
The spinning spheres have gathered, joined in Evensong.

Dawn's pool of new light
Flooding over fields of frost
Frozen world of time

Waves roll across the bay
losing themselves on a beach

Clouds fly through the sky
vanishing into the horizon

Summer's petals fall
to the ground that receives them


Yet our love, that lives
in sea, air and soil

Is constant.