Old Harry

This is my Uncle Jim sailing us over to Old Harry rocks  in Dorset.















Old Harry

The brilliant green oak is out
Before the open hand of the ash
And I am on dry land again,
Home turf, the shepherded Down
And spikey heath, gold now
Before the purple. This

Is where I was born.
But I am native of the sea.
Old Harry, you call me,
Like you're not sure
If I'm the Devil
Or grandfather.

The gifts I bring ashore
You'll take
But you'll not smile,
You'll look over my shoulder
For some imagined sickle. So 
I do all the smiling. You're drawn 

To the chalk cliffs
But you'll not see me
As the keel slips into the sand.
I'm home,
With the gold
Of the things that I know:

How the tricky mirror
Of the sea can play the eye
With tone, tumble, wind over tide,
When the waves are white-topped
And onshore the sea-grass shines
Like a slice of sky.

I've a whole lived life buried
In those dunes and a crew lost
Like shadows in the birch.
And I know the places the Moon-
Light won't reach, where the beech
Will not whisper my whereabouts.

Do you see me in the land
Lit by the thousand colours
Of sky? The sky that lifts the ocean
High, and drops it, splash,
Like the dripping black anchor
Upon this land.

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