Estuary

Estuary

The sea birds swift and passing
The tide dragging and mocking and dragging
The estuary-ridden boats
Pitch and wallow in the silt of journeys begun and never done
Long swallowed, long worn, dissolved by the pull of the sea.

The dull clouds pierced brilliant
By flashes and shafts of winter sun.
Flickering moments of storm sudden illumination

And the seaside towns
With their white wash and washed up
And oil slick stark smack in the face of the wind
Standing steady in the gull clipped rigging
And the long dead fish and fishermen
Or the ghosts of fishermen
Scraping the flats in mud and thigh high boots
And the sea birds beak-deep, and the mermaid's purse
And the rushes, the rushes,
The hush of the rushes.

hannah foot
april 2001