The Waverley
You and I were new, drinking on the quay in the extended summer
when the Waverley steamer arrived.
It came in slowly, blocking Sheppey from view.
People looked up from pints and fish.
What is this?
Passengers photographed us and we photographed them.
We cooed and we clicked and we hugged each other.
Watched it dock.
Watched those waiting to get off.
Then, with the sea ahead, it continued its way.
The passengers felt closer this time.
They waved and we waved.
It grew smaller the further out –
that simultaneous feeling of regret and relief
when friends or visitors leave.
Each shingle-stone cast a shadow over the next shingle-stone
in a succession of shadows
and shingle-stones.
We walked home. I saw us –
two figures joined at the hands
with very long legs.
Bryan Wynter’s Landscape, Zennor
The dark is the sea that has soaked through,
dripping into buckets already full –
night-time in the day;
the granite blackened, the fields dimmed,
the moon in each headlight.
With each stroke of the paddle,
you tried to keep time with the sea –
the blue pulling you deeper
into the undertow. In the gallery,
my small body of water
rests in front of your canoe:
your final form, unmoored.
Godrevy Lighthouse
I try to line up his painting
with the contours of the cliff
but a face changes over time –
rocks sliding down into the middle of the beach,
receding marram grass,
the edge unstable.
At least the lifeguard hut,
no longer in use but standing.
His route is now a memory –
the only other thing of his I own.
Newly marked: a desire line,
leading to the light.
You and I were new, drinking on the quay in the extended summer
when the Waverley steamer arrived.
It came in slowly, blocking Sheppey from view.
People looked up from pints and fish.
What is this?
Passengers photographed us and we photographed them.
We cooed and we clicked and we hugged each other.
Watched it dock.
Watched those waiting to get off.
Then, with the sea ahead, it continued its way.
The passengers felt closer this time.
They waved and we waved.
It grew smaller the further out –
that simultaneous feeling of regret and relief
when friends or visitors leave.
Each shingle-stone cast a shadow over the next shingle-stone
in a succession of shadows
and shingle-stones.
We walked home. I saw us –
two figures joined at the hands
with very long legs.
Bryan Wynter’s Landscape, Zennor
The dark is the sea that has soaked through,
dripping into buckets already full –
night-time in the day;
the granite blackened, the fields dimmed,
the moon in each headlight.
With each stroke of the paddle,
you tried to keep time with the sea –
the blue pulling you deeper
into the undertow. In the gallery,
my small body of water
rests in front of your canoe:
your final form, unmoored.
Godrevy Lighthouse
I try to line up his painting
with the contours of the cliff
but a face changes over time –
rocks sliding down into the middle of the beach,
receding marram grass,
the edge unstable.
At least the lifeguard hut,
no longer in use but standing.
His route is now a memory –
the only other thing of his I own.
Newly marked: a desire line,
leading to the light.