Letting It Be Where It Lands

I recall the tideline trickling all along the shore. 

The memory of a ripple fading into distance 

in the shape of the sea edge, dried out, stranded. 

Close up, it's another way to read the tide, 

the remains of stories swept up and thrown together,

waiting to make sense.

This confusion of parts has been waiting a long time, 

separated by their names; old bones parted from their boats,

feathers adrift from any flight path, seaweed and shells 

thrown from their element. Broken and beautiful, their voices 

continued to call, saying "look, look". 

When the ink falls onto the page it runs through the water 

and becomes something new, ready 

to be picked up by the eye, the pen. Things are left as they fell

but even seeing is art; a new element gathering the pieces together, 

becoming a new whole within the frame, a new way of being, 

another turn of the endless tide.

Drawing the Tideline

Here is another collision

of what is blown out with what is washed in

The tense grasp at control and the watery slip of giving up

It's like the sea

gathering all that is lost and drifting

and giving us what we yearn for

a second chance 

a fractal big bang creating a fault line 

feathered, fragile, already collapsing

You have to trust the materials

and let them define themselves

it just falls apart when you try too hard

There is a moment when it all seems perfect

like that evening, walking the tideline

It will be different next time you look

Waxcaps Remembered

Joy returns through the lens

a third eye connecting

to grey matter becoming green

and white and red

Senses revive salt winds and slopes

The mind zooms in

and feels the relief of receiving

a gift of inks, willing

to take on the task of remembering

Sticky miracles greet the eye

Joyful, nonsensical

Life as expression, bursts into being

A kind of return

As I have been unable to visit the dunes because of the pandemic guidelines, I have been exploring the landscape in a different way over the last few weeks. Relying on my photographs and memories of my walks there I have created some paintings and some new poems reflecting on the process. In this way I've kept a connection with the  coast and made some new discoveries about my relationship with the place. I'm hoping to return in person soon as I'm longing to feel the wind coming in from the sea and to hear the brushing of the marram . . .