Beaches: a poetry post

And so we're into Autumn, I swear I heard the tyres screeching as the season turned. I'm writing this at my desk in the light of my little lamp and it's almost 9am, but it's gloomy because it's chucking it down.

I love Autumn. I spent ages yesterday watching gannets diving for fish in the roiling sea, keeping their places despite the wind. And I love the fog that can wrap us up in a quiet blanket.

I used to live in the Isle of Man, where the god Manannan takes care of his drunk little islanders by wrapping his warm cloak around them. So whenever I can't see the islands near us for the fog I wonder if Manannan is wrapping his cloak around us too. It feels like it.

Anyway, The Prompt, over on the Mum Turned Mom blog this week is Motion, which just had me thinking of the motion of the ocean, and of the good luck I have to be able to live near the sea again. So I am sharing this poem which I wrote earlier this year, inspired by a line in Andrew McMillan's poem, Finally (go read it, it's amazing): "that the beach was not the place."

I am not sure about this poem, but maybe you could give me some feedback on it? Cheers in advance.

Beaches

Don't remember walking on
the beach along with you.
Rather, I would walk behind,
pick shells while skies were blue.

I remember fumbles on
a darkened clifftop bench.
Possibilities of our
love teetered on the edge.

I remember watching all
the lights go out at sea.
Singing songs in darkness while
you sat along with me.

I remember crying on
the darkened midnight steps.
Wishing to be far away
and that we'd never met.

I remember edging to
the clifftop, looking down.
Throwing in my ring in lieu
of me, in swells to drown.

And this beach where I have washed
up is a different beach.
Water flows and sand does shift
and that one's out of reach.

© Cara L McKee 16/4/16

Comments

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