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West Kirby.

SAND FLATS AT WEST KIRBY

At low water the sand flats stretch unbroken

down the Dee estuary’s English coast

to the reed beds of Parkgate and Burton Marsh;

stretch beyond the islands in the river’s mouth –

Hilbre, Middle Eye and Little Eye –

towards the wind turbines in Liverpool Bay;

then along the head of the Peninsula,

past Meols, Leasowe, Wallasey and New Brighton,

to join the mudflats of the Mersey.

 

At low water the sand flats are safe to cross

to the islands – and you might feel you could walk

to that wind farm on Burbo Bank, or walk

to Wales and reach Snowdonia’s ranges,

despite the channels you cannot see,

and the waves encroaching which you cannot hear,

let alone see, because of the constant sound

of endless, restless, distant waters.

 

Here are such large skies of shifting clouds,

long veils of rain, unbroken sunlight –

such immense firmaments. This is a place

of horizons and mirage, of disquiet,

and exhilaration, like a lost element,

a lost dimension, as if you might glimpse

heaven or angels, or whatever else

may be at the world’s edge.

 

 

ON LITTLE EYE

Only the highest tides reach this small island’s

sandstone rocks. A collar of flaxen sand

surrounds it. A quarter of a mile north

is Middle Eye. A hundred yards further

is Hilbre, habitation of hermits,

custom’s officers, weather stations.

These three are rugged, stony outcrops

in the mouth of the estuary.

 

Leaving West Kirby’s suburban promenade,

we had walked, at low water, to Little Eye

across the Dee’s hard, striated sands.

Westward is Wales, and the redundant lighthouse

at Point of Ayr, and, beyond and looming,

Llandudno’s Great Orme like the dragon’s head

the Norsemen named it for. Here is the earth’s

sweep, our planet’s generous curve and grasp.

 

Nearer, on West Hoyle Bank, a colony

of maybe thirty, forty grey seals

has hauled out, dark shapes only at this distance –

their calls plaintive as gulls’, chesty, guttural.

In the channel between – filling with tide –

two kite surfers skim noisily into sight.

The giant sails swell, billow, with chancy air.

The seals begin to stir. We are tiny

on the arc of the world.

 

 

 

 

MIRAGE

On Little Eye, a family appears trapped
by the incoming tide – two adults,
a boy, a girl and a dog marooned
in some Enid Blyton adventure.
We anticipate an RNLI
Atlantic hoving to the rescue.
But they wait in the sun for the ebb,
the dog barking at black headed gulls.

By a sandstone outcrop are high, thick bushes
with vivid orange berries – ‘Poisonous!’
we hear our childhood’s guardians call.
But a woman is gathering them –
Sea-buckthorn berries – nutritional,
medicinal throughout Eurasia.

And I remember my first outing
after a heart attack – to the North Shore,
Llandudno – a picnic in a shelter
by the paddling pool and an October sun
making me thankful. ‘We had salami
sandwiches,’ I say. ‘As if!’ you respond.

Here, at sea level on West Kirby’s beach,
people, at the sea’s edge, seem to walk
in the waves, on the horizon itself.
From the top of the dunes, they become
cormorants drying their wings on the sand.

 

 

 

WEST KIRBY, WIRRAL

I can see here the curvature and compass

of the world. From the embankment that

separates the enclosed, salt-water Marina –

crowded today with summer holiday

novice canoeists – from the Dee Estuary,

I can see, east, a hundred metres away,

The Promenade; south – beyond the dinghies

moored midstream, their halyards tinkling

in the steady breeze – the white cooling towers

and the cable-stayed bridge at Connah’s Quay;

west, Flintshire’s industrial shore rising

steeply into the green Clwydian Hills,

where a fire has begun in the gorse

and the bracken on Holywell Common;

north west, Hilbre, island of erstwhile

pilgrimage then commerce; north – beneath

the horizon where ships wait for high tide

to cross the Liverpool Bar – West Kirby’s beach,

stretching into a mile of sand flats that ends

where the distant waves break ashen and silent.