Maghreb

For Pat Rogerson

 

‘To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower…’

AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE, William Blake

 

From sixteen hundred miles away a friend,

on the southern most edge of Iberia,

with the Maghreb below the horizon,

and all of the South Atlantic beyond,

sends me a photograph of low dunes,

a cobalt sky, and flaxen sands that stretch

almost out of sight – and texts me to say

she imagines the poem I might write there.

 

***

 

Birds call. A flock of gulls or gannets, too far

out at sea to be sure, flies eastwards, where

almost translucent clouds – teased out like skeins

of wool – are high above the Gulf of Cadiz,

and the elusive ruins of Atlantis.

 

Sand seeps from the dunes onto the beach. Each grain

contributes to the golden shore, and waves

relentlessly tug wet sand seawards.

 

What worlds we carry in our skulls, what albums,

what compasses, and dreams!