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sea

BATHING AT LLANDDWYN

I watch the three generations – mother,

daughter, grand daughter – walk, hand-in-hand, in

toddler steps, to the sea’s edge, and paddle

in the calm, beryl blue waters of the bay.

Opposite, along the Lleyn Peninsula,

over its mountain – The Rivals – with its

three summits, a white, single seater flies,

its engine echoing across this August day.

Laughing in the shallows, they have not seen it.

Their splashing drowns the sound of the plane

absorbed into the distant heat haze.

They turn and wave to me.  I am blessed

by their very existence – their joy

making ephemeral aircraft, mountain, sea.

 

 

 

CROSBY

Another Place ©SCES 2008

We crunch through razor shells and squelch through

blackish silt – there is coal in the drenched sand –

to reach the artist’s cast iron avatars.

They are steadfast against anglers, vandals,

local Tories, jet skiers, the Coastguard,

and the RSPB – but not the wind

or the sea. Some are rusting deeply,

some barnacled already, some sinking

or rising – others missing on this

shifty shore. They have watched the North Sea.

Now, from here, they can see Snowdonia,

The Skerries, Queenstown, the New World –

and, some, when the tide is in, sea creatures

in their wilderness of oblivion.

Above, ships pass and the wind farm turns.

UNDER NOVEMBER SKIES

The rain has stopped. We can hear only the wind

and a swollen stream – hidden beneath

the high moor’s golden fern – rush through a culvert

under the road, which glistens, after the shower,

in an unexpected shaft of sunlight.

Rain clouds are blackening the mountains

to the west but northwards, beyond bracken

and gorse that stretches seemingly to land’s edge,

through a gap in the hills, we can see the sea,

a sunny blue, and a white ship sailing east –

too far away to recognise her flags.

Chance has brought us here as winter comes. Love

stays us against the dark.

 

Note: this piece has been subsequently published in ‘A Jar of Sticklebacks’ – http://www.armadillocentral.com/general/a-jar-of-sticklebacks-by-david-selzer.