Letting it fall onto the page

Solo

You can come here thinking

you’re on your own

and will find nothing

except the unwanted, a plastic cup,

a bag of dog dirt flung on a pristine sandbank

You can feel you shouldn’t be here

if you come across 

a shirtless man sunbathing.

These things may prompt you to walk faster, deeper

into the dunes, away

yet still without direction.

You don’t know where you are

and at this point you could realise

it’s not a question of finding

but of losing.

The magpie helps with this

watching with a knowing eye

carrying nothing.

He slows you down

as you follow his cryptic route from post to post

Slowing, you see

damp white flowers, grass of parnassus, red clover,

a dragonfly,

another, hear

a flock of little birds curving over the marram

into the low grey green 

then up in a ribbon across the blue.

This is when you might have to remind yourself to breathe

and notice what has fallen away - 
expectations

hopes and doubts

They were only cluttering 

a space which is already full

of everything you could want with you

Tug

Have you ever felt the sea call?
It has a calling voice 

It pulls 

through the brambles that reach 

across the sand paths

through the buckthorn

pumped up with berries

Gulls point the way

over the dunes, a kite

flutters like the teatowel

my mother used to wave

when it was time to come home

Ainsdale 20th August 2019