Clarion

Special Effects

Yesterday gales spilled again
from North upon this rude protuberance,
North-Norfolk, edge of Wash,
pannicular belly of England,

the tide being tight in, unnervingly,
as though 'they'd' wheeled the whole bucking
foam mattress in on castors
while we'd taken a day in Cambridge,

so we sat and ate a sandwich
watching the rearing, frothing, plunging,
bolting to swash foam,
trembling, blown blistered in
all edging like a doom towards us:-

lie down in that milk-feathered bed
and drown, rolled listlessly under wave-hoof.

So then we jumped in the foam
as you do in snow
kicked it as a pile of autumn leaves;
all the while wind blades dark churned milk waves
and their wide white ledges swashed out
scud-scum-sud-mats, wobbling in wind-lash

until we'd had enough of that Dr. Who stuff
and headed for dune lee, lazing, watching
a rabbit's mad dash across the pinked salt-marsh.

Maybe it sensed that inundation was at hand,
for as we walked back along the sea defense,
marsh blew tanks; slow sank, Behemoth,
beneath the rippling lagoon, curlews calling
forlorn: 'Seek her! Seek her!'

Just one more piece of magic:
going through the last sea-bank gate,
the galvanized, hollow post was singing,
deep wind-pipe fundamental and then...
harmonics - not so Aeolian, more Boreal,
the chill wind's mettle in unyielding metal,
surreal, anyway, Urshie and I just stood there,
rapt, a long while, for the concert.