My Water

He wrote about water

So I shall write about water

More specifically

I will write about the water

Of The Orkney’s Scapa Flow

Though I will especially try

Not to mention the German navy

Scuppering (sinking) their own boats

Or Churchill having barriers built

By the workers of the Italian Chapel

Constructed to pen in the opposition

Rather I will write about the light

Light seen from Houton

The late-night light

Scattered as flashlights by the waves

Weaved as satin beneath the clouds

The early morning light

Flushed by the disturbance of the first ferry

Reflected by the shoreline on the coastal lane

Also the sun light, and the mist light

Which both gave, which both took away

My reference frame of meaning

My valuable source of reassurance

Frame, Shoot, Blend

I thought to crop the photograph

Take out the land, the wall

Leave only sky, sky and sea

Leave only light, light and imagination

You thought that too many photographs

Held little or no meaning

That criticism weighed heavily

On top of my own denigration

I asked myself how, or why

Where might I learn

Is to slow down the answer

Or should I be more fleet of foot

You asked yourself when, or which

Should be a memory

Is categorisation the answer

Or would random-display better the effect

 

Community

Your email asks plenty questions

Of the registers of the voice

Of the chest resonator

Of the arch of the palette

Of course I do remember

Walking towards Rena

On the grass

Outside of our studio

Yes our studio, ours for the week

At the tip-top of my kingdom

Though for you, for many of you

It was a different country entirely

And for me a different life

Well outside my comfort zone

Among actors and theatre directors

Shouting out for the whole world to hear

 

Land & Imagination

Often I am alone

On the two-sided

Two-seater churchyard bench

But not today, no

For today it is a Sunday in June

When sons walk out with their mothers

And farm shops close, so no half-way

Provisions for this cyclist

I have flown across skies

Of this hue before

I have landed

In equally beautiful places

Where the tastes of youth

Attracted the flight

Where the lust of expectation 

Garnered the urgency

 

Country Roads

And in that one moment

Watching

The Larkin documentary

I too was swept off to Beverley

Also to Ampleforth Abbey

In that one moment

I had risen from the sofa

To feel the sunshine

Thinking about being

Among writing friends

Of course, as with love

I would find an element

Of argument and discontent 

Fury and absence

In the Basildon Bond

En route to Rosedale

I witnessed 

A small village funeral

Carried out with some style

Later, on a private drive

With calypso-coloured

Rhododendrons

I surreptitiously drove towards

A restored country house

And in that one moment

I had entered

A new world order

Built from the success

Of wistful, wishful, absent-minded

Sunday afternoon thinking