with grateful thanks to the people of the Fitties, particularly Caroline Carr and Katie Teakle who gave words here
going down through
we’ve been very lucky here – had very few cases
i expect it’s the sea air
sandy grassland bright trefoils, patternings of whites –
stitchwort, queen ann’s lace, and milkwort
bracted pink through green swathing
i don’t have the energy I did – it’s been so silent, no traffic
how it would have been, the sky bluer –
you re-look, re-visit
past sea buckthorns holding dunes with their roots
old papery webs wound around spines and spikes
before bud, before leaf, before berry
my life is really small now, small and quiet – the day is the day
it’s comforting to me thinking that everybody else is
doing the same thing
looking out over the sands bright cord grass colonising
sand under water out of water setting roots setting
mud flat wedges into marsh flagging up
the coastguard were saying don’t come
it’s treacherous here at the best of times and
the water fowl are breeding, all the birds and amphibians
pale early white-pink thrift flowers within flower
out of bronze sheath under singing lark sky
they miss their family, they’re a really close family
you know – we hear him singing to
his grandchildren on the phone
sea arrowgrass clumps pools wet edges, stalks spiking out of
leaf-curves into the wind, just making early purples
tiny separate globes under strong sun
this place has been rolled over because people
are tender and they’re not knowing
and they’ve been rolled over
into the marsh heart of golden creek & pool
shielding, staying put – but he’s still doing
his 6000 steps round the garden
every day the same
points of white, english sea scurvygrass angelica with a catch
and a tapering, single serration distinguishes
separation from self
she was hardly eating but I’m cooking anyway
so I’m bullying her into it – it’s just a matter
of sorting out what she can’t eat
deep green ovals of sea lavender’s broad lush leaves –
not even a bud yet – up through grey-green mosaic of purslane’s
spread rosettes, soft-sharp elliptical leaves sending salt out, dropping colour
we’re more vulnerable because more remote but
I’ve never been a hot house flower –
yes I stayed
the further out in the open you – tide low – samphire just surfacing
among last year’s skeletons, pushing wet pink-brown up
globular not yet branching
you’ve still got the air here
even if you can’t get
to the sea
across mud flats, salt pans, creek’s edges
according to light & tide
just like last year