1
Grey sky greyer sea
a litter of rocks balance
coat bright hat blue mittens striped
as on these November steps
you collect the gifts of the ebb tide
2
Glint green this living tapestry echoes
Jilly’s field with tractor not Devon
but salt-flats rocky revetments moorland rising
a map crossed by a chiromatic line
our destiny marked out on this concrete wall?
3
Beached clinkered double-ender
a bay-courser sjekte strand-crunched
fit once for Viking raiders two abreast
now daubed with tin ends of patriotic paint
a sea-steed hobbled ******* the shore
4
Bow faced a sea helmet thrice rope strapped
slow moulded over the boat builder’s ribbanded jig
a spanglehelm of wood
curved sheer straked plank bilged a tuck stern
raising its proud head seaward
5
Viewed from the air a map rolls out
north to the tilted curve of the horizon’s rim
cloud scattered mountained red
betwixt seas sun chalked wine-stained a volcanic isthmus
provokes desert the western waste land of a brooding city
6
Oh face of ropes knot eyed!
you blue cheeked wide smiler
wild wild your head of hair
beachcombed and splayed
wrapped on the sternest post
7
She sewed sugar kelp on the sea shore
a sporophyte with sheltered frond
strap-like stem stiff and smooth
of the species saccharina a spring-tide
stalk set among substrates shells and stones
8
I the camera turned and caressed
by her slight fingers (the pinky raised)
my viewfinder close to her blue grey eye / I
focus on this kelp-needled novelty feel her breath
wait for the thumb press the electronic click
9
Here is the beach walked in darkness
the fishermen shadows against the moonstruck ebb
fingers laced the sea’s breath in our ears
wave upon wave un-folding on the sand and later
we unfold then draw back in love’s relentlessness
The artist Utamaro organised a day out at the seaside for a group of poets. He gathered their poems together to accompany a collection of intricate paintings he published in a book called Gifts from the Ebb Tide. This can be seen in a beautiful on line presentation from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. My poem sequence is written in the same spirit although transposed to the seashore of the North East of England.
