I

Tired
the long road ends
by a sea wall
The engine dies
to cries of estuary birds
to halyards’ **** and tinge
A lake of light set in night’s cloudscape
brims over the western marshland
to seaward a dense darkness
On the ferry’s step
ear close to the brown water
a part-song sings the ebb tide’s flow

II

Threading into the marshland
a braid of cloud-reflected water
of oval sedge and common reed
In amongst the brown canes perspective vanishes
only by mind’s foreshortening or body’s levitation
is there sight beyond the creeping rootstock
By the river path a leaf
pearled with glazed dew glistening
dew grabbing the photographic eye
Standing backs to the horizon
a sculpted triad of bronzed ancestors
watch over the summer rites of music

III

This ****** field
moves clamorously under the feet
waiting waiting for the sea’s kiss
Proud-coloured the boats here
resting poised on railway sleepers
beside their tractored guardians
How to know which way to turn
which view to hold for memory’s stamp
this patient sky this slow exhaling sea
This foreground flow of white-grey-brown pebbles
each sensibly-sized for the hand in the pocket
yet substantially-singular on the window’s sill