The wind is howling now
A gale out to sea
The gulls all look pale
In a marked misery
They are petals
Collected on the flat rocks
Which lie who knows why
When around them
Are all jagged vertical alumni
I’m writing home
On a Saturday
To say
The visitors never came
The sea it was too rough
Hopes candle dwindled
To a low flame
We occupy our time
In occlusions from the high eye
Victorian built bunkers
Where are stored work tools
Where we make driftwood benches
And walk along the shore
On our feet are Wellington boots
In our hands are bow saws
We topple and slip and hop
Over the newly wetted rocks
Look in at rock pools
By the white sea-foam fringes stop
At first I thought a bird had died
But it was not feathers
Rather lathered up plankton water
Aerated by the belts of wind like leathers
Across waves as if chastising unruly sons and daughters
At night we wait until the last light from the sky has gone
Before turning on
The bulbs of electric
And a fire is a blessing every few days
Because there is nowhere to go
We become important to each other
And habits of meal times are sacred things
Not to be broken
As marriage vows and rings
Conversation usually goes well
Few things stand as tokens
Except doing unto others as you would have done unto yourself
The unwritten authority of the warden in most things
Is left unspoken
We defer to him as lost sheep
Sometimes he is our shepherd
What he has an abundance of is confidence
And a love of food
In some respects we may not get on without him
No comments:
Post a Comment