Suite
Ste. Luce
1
Black
backed gulls,
nature's
alarm clocks,
waking
the seaside
with
their glaucous rattle.
High
tide? Low tide?
We have
drifted on our life raft
far from
the grasping hands
of the
city clocks.
Gulls
dine on the beach.
Day's
rhythm all at sea.
2
6 am? 7
am? 8 am?
What do
they mean?
The
planet's slow revolution?
This sun
arc sketched in its stretch of sky?
Salt
spray combing seaside fingers
through a
young girl's hair.
A man in
a red boat, fishing.
3
Bare toes
grip
damp
wrinkled sand.
Worms
have written
runes in
their arcane
wriggling
script.
What do
they tell us,
these
secret messages?
Sunburnt
now,
the bare
beach itches
like
tanned leather,
like salt
on a fish skin
nailed
drying to a frame.
4
The salt
air drives its freshness,
needles
knitting through my chest.
Slowed
heartbeat of the dormant beach,
the
tide's blood flowing,
in and
out,
inflating,
deflating
the
beach's sandy lung.
5
Early
morning mist:
a shadow
heron
clacks
its beak
at a ring
of mobbing gulls.
6
When the
mist clears,
heron
draws
his neck
into a bow
and fires
the arrow
of his beak
into a
fish.
The gulls
run wild,
clawing
up the sky
on a
ladder of sound.
7
Seagull:
a
coat-hanger, hanging from
a blue
sky-rail,
white
wings braced
against
the flow of air.
8
Herring
gulls hovering,
like
doves
round the
old man's head;
a halo
of
clacking red-ringed beaks
livid
against the sky.
Brazen
voiced,
these
peace doves,
mewling
for their daily bread.
9
Black
cormorants
pinning
their
wings to dry
on the
wind's
rough
cross-beams.
10
The dead
crab,
alive an
eye blink ago:
body exit
left
(with the
black backed gull)
legs
exeunt right
(with
herring gull attendants).
Crowd
scene:
a chorus
of
crows-in-waiting.
11
The beach
compacts
smaller
and smaller.
The tide
jostles
sand
pipers
into a
dwindling world:
this
shrinking pocket
handkerchief
of sand.
12
Happy the
kite's face
with its
child
dangling
far below.
Kite
bounces up and down
on a
tight-rope of air.
Below it,
the child
walking
the beach,
nose to
the wind,
obedience
on a leash.
The kite
wags
its long,
bright tail.
13
When the
mist thickens,
it closes
a window in the sky.
The
church on the headland
steps
plainly into sight,
and fades
again.
The old
man wraps himself
in a
cloak of rain.
Suddenly,
the sun
drapes
itself,
like a
golden sou'wester,
over his
head.
14
Summer
lies abandoned
under
rain-soaked umbrellas.
Red
bucket, bright blue spade.
Childhood,
cast like
a pair of sandals
on this
cold, damp sand.