VIII

Glassy smooth
a mirror-sea
reflects a turbulent
cloudscape blending
white into grey

today far distant
the sea joins the sky
the sky absorbs the sea
into the one
the other disappears

and little movement
at the water’s edge . . .
the tide-uncovered land
lies exposed to harden
in the still air

IX

Despite the profusion
the messiness of it all
and with disorder everywhere
there is a precise vocabulary
for the nature and experience
of the coastal strip
the area caught between
land and sea.

Rocks littered
Sand pitted and patterned
Sea sounding breaking pulling-back
Sky an overarching complement to it all

and the necessary story of coming
and the ‘just being here’
and this path to the sea shore
strewn so with anticipation
with forward-facing dreams almost
urgent imaginings as we let go
of the constraints of the squared space
the vertical architecture of daily life

X

See how those we love are transformed
when the sea is their only boundary

a figure stands before a sand bar
in a crescent of water left by the tide
an affecting geometry of solitude

another gathers her body in a crouch
to come close to a speckled play of tiny shells
fragments thrown together by the morning’s tide

The beach is such unconfining space
where movement demands no direction


XI

this attentive looking
at what lies at the feet
or not
choosing to pass by
the curiously-formed
or not

but there is a measuredness
of step an accompanying intent
with that always-confidence
there may be something

so single out what can be held
in the fingers what can lie
entire in the neutral space
of your collection’s row

then later

with the pencil’s mark
the brush’s touch
in line and shade
and the tricks of chiaroscuro
an image will be secured
in mind and muscles’ memory

you will have drawn this form
into knowledge