PROSPECTS

A house and high-walled garden occupy

nearly all of the old Lifeboat Station’s yard.

All that remains of its shed and the ramp

down into the inlet are the stumps

of the wooden supports set in concrete blocks –

both wood and concrete are ragged, wrecked, sea-worn.

On what litte remains of the yard

are two benches in recycled plastic

with small, faux-brass plaques – practical

and altruistic memento mori.

Behind them is the garden wall, hidden now

completely by a dense bank of hebe,

that has grown from the garden over the wall.

In decline as farmland is subdued,

there is a small flock of starlings in the hebe,

grazing on the insects the plant attracts.

I remember the swirling clouds of

constellations across fields and hedgerows,

and in the natureless centres of cities.

The congregation in the hebe, which has

been chattering with exultation,

goes quiet for no apparent reason,

and then suddenly begins again –

like a multitude of whisperings.

Like all prospects the view from here is

ambivalent: gone, like the lifeboats,

are sea baths, hotel, fishing village –

somewhere once worthy of sepia postcards –

replaced by converted cottages,

and new build all the way to the coastal road

and above along the low line of hills –

ex-pats and holiday lets. In the inlet

below, a boy on a paddle board signals

to imagined comrades. Eastwards is the sea,

today merely murmuring, violet where clouds pass –

in the depths porpoise and dolphin dive.