JENNY MOON

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THE SOUND OF THE TIDE


I am wrapped in you and your jacket
and the sound of the tide running out.
A flow along the harbour wall
pulls at buoys, sweeps the eroding rock.
There is the slapping stay,
A squabble of ducks, the suck
of mud on hull. Far is the city
and its cathedral tower, far off its roar
as dusk settles across a big sky.

Wrapped in you and your jacket,
we are somewhere between
our first meeting and what might be;
somewhere in the order of things.
Reflections shatter and remake.
In the wispy breeze the image of a boat,
mirrored exactly, can break at a whim.
We watch the swans pair, glide
and preen, group. They may part,

- but for now we weave our way
Between life’s events, the turn
of tides, the incessant roll of hours
measured out by the harbour bell
Now, to the north, the night
takes its ease over the hills,
while up and down the estuary
the port lights begin to mark
the channel through the dark waters


Lympstone.