Crane
Dance
A sink of muddy eel grass marks the keel,
defining limits of a surge tide
thirty years ago, this bow sludge singling the sea’s mind
better than a quayside craft.
Where did that weather go, that northerly salt rip
storming Salcott Creek?
The chandler’s yard, the sail-maker’s shed,
mementos of a living still had, still rack the same haul
with hip-boots and a baitfish slurry…
the cabin crumpled to the gunwales….
I know what winter is, the routes the tides take.
On the shingle spit, standing to his easel, a painter
catches the sky’s flat greys.
Leaning windward, the easel’s flutter-edge of paper teases.
At water’s edge the wader, startled by its image,
stills, a second’s freeze
before it flies.
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