15. Jenny Brown’s Point

Returning to ‘The Point’ this evening,
in an out-take of the Spring,
to sweep a slow but restless gaze
across the broad expanse
the start and end of all its living things,
it is not possible to see
the tide retreating from the polished land
or savouring its lazy turn
or creeping back to lick and suck the slime
that curtains mud-lined pools,
shines between the bending channels,
puddled, bubbling ripples
varnished with a low and slanting light.

The crumbled mole, a stony leach
still stretches out its tapering mass
across the wind-chilled, salt-sweet flats
finger of a stalling clock
pointing at the silver gash
eye-lined portal of the night
where only in the mind
a glittering surface foments in the dying light;
tomorrow, racing from us,
faster than a life.