Widegates
Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 3:16 am
Since chocoholic on another thread quoted Tennyson's Crossing the Bar it seemed a good excuse to post my second Salcombe poem - the first is North Sands, which I've already posted.
The place is called Widegates because the estuary opens out where the branch that leads to Frogmore joins the main estuary, and the widening out means there are mudflats.
Widegates
Curlew and Snipe peel off into air
From step-probe-step on the mudflat:
The first shimmer of change, as if
The whole estuary were a grazing beast
Twitching at some quiver in the grass,
Uneasy, not yet a stampede.
Changing tides. After ebb and pause
At slack, the sea's spreading hands
Lift seaweed and sweep feeding birds
Inland. Clean bright deep sea smells
Scour swamp stink of oozing sludge
At ocean's edge and a silver skin
Glitters with every touch of wind
Above this rich dark meat of mud.
By Clodhopper
The place is called Widegates because the estuary opens out where the branch that leads to Frogmore joins the main estuary, and the widening out means there are mudflats.
Widegates
Curlew and Snipe peel off into air
From step-probe-step on the mudflat:
The first shimmer of change, as if
The whole estuary were a grazing beast
Twitching at some quiver in the grass,
Uneasy, not yet a stampede.
Changing tides. After ebb and pause
At slack, the sea's spreading hands
Lift seaweed and sweep feeding birds
Inland. Clean bright deep sea smells
Scour swamp stink of oozing sludge
At ocean's edge and a silver skin
Glitters with every touch of wind
Above this rich dark meat of mud.
By Clodhopper