Sand-martins whirling out of cliffs.
Hay trussed in roly-poly bales.
Stalled windmills. Big skies.
A place for weather-watching rites, for money
to
invest in, rewarding itself
with the obligatory boat and a lawn
that
tapers off in search of water, life's
elixir, leisure's mirror... Walsingham
and
Cromer: the manufactured shrine with
something - nothingness? -- candled at its
heart,
the deft
resort with one eye on your wallet
and one on the enigma of the sky
that
bends above the threatened beach
where if, as they heap and spill, drag and heap,
the
waves are trying to communicate -
some maxim, perhaps concerning survival,
the need
to endure, to hope just enough -
you find you're baffled, you can't hear a word.
(Published in Wheel (Arc, 2008) and reprinted by
permission of the author and Arc)