1

in sea-guarded silence
the sun climbs
behind the eastern hill
showing elaborate head-
dress first of feathered
light purple red orange
gold these colours
absorbed into
the facing sky just
as a sea-sand stretch
might gather waves
inexorably into its
surface self

on the islanded horizon
a northern  light
flashes flashes flashes
the final sequence due
to a night passing
to dawn to day

a seascape with
still-resting birds -
forgetting to breathe
waiting on the sun’s
rise

2

rising with the sun
the front rooms
are flooded with
golden prospect;
a fine day
and whilst everything
remains fine here
the weather still
rules the spirit

beyond the window
grass shivers
beyond the grass
rocks stretch out
to a cold sea
and on the horizon
a cloudless sky

on the page
the breath-pause hovers
to catch thoughts
on the flood
and seizing
the moment mark
and separate
to form sense
of unbidden  words

from what deep place
do these lines surface
without deliberation due?

as if poised
on a lip above
the teeming life-pool -
to take the plunge with
the air fresh on naked limbs
- there is a waiting
for the icy touch
of  a water-world of words
brought upward
in diurnal migration
only to sink in slow
elliptical turns beyond
imagination’s reach

3

pale the sky:
walking again
the sand-strewn track
banked with grasses
small reminders of  flowers
proud stalks of oats
flown from a nearby field
they nod and curve
in the evening air

in more than wonder
a day fulfilled by
coming again
to this slight path
above the home beach
its lapping tide is
coloured by a coming night
edged now on the dunes’ rim
where beyond a greater sea
pounds an unseen shore
with longer strokes of waves
falling -  then pulling back

as in counterpoint
the nearer sea exhales
and in that space
the farther fills with lower tones
almost ominous inevitably
strong in spread
and crush and cluster
the close-pitched sounds
falling onto the white sand
hard from a day’s sun
and steady wind


4

dawn just
in the foreground
the bluster and shake
of the matt-green reeds
but widening the view
the eye rests on
two reflections of sky
brush-stroked
water-washed
pinky hues
faintly yellows
absorbing into clouds

aloft
and
motionless

standing far above
the turbulent flow
of the ground’s wind
cloud-cover for the grandeur
of these dream-shaped hills
rising out of the land
to meet the sky
bringing heaven-ward
the earth beneath