A wide backslash brushstroke of sea-rubble,
mostly but not all grey, from the halfway,
east to west, to a midpoint and a bit
over the top of the sand, going south
to north. It zigzags, from the upstroke’s end
in three nearly horizontal stripes
like a jerky blind unfolding towards Agnes,
dangling just more than the hurl of a large stone
from the ramp down to the water-smoothed towan
on which a dog cuts deep calligraphies
with assiduous enthusiasm, pausing
suddenly, one paw held about to flick sand
backwards over the granite-specked surface
otherwise uninscribed. Soon the waves’ ideogram
will go under retelling sea once more.
The dog will be away long since, eating
or sleeping or digging something elsewhere,
scratching the story of its inner life,
not knowing it is possible to read
back what we have written; and unaware
that marks represent the noise of mouths
if we believe it’s so and work at it.
Once more the churn and its loose material
shall work at dry expressions of themselves.
-----
UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
wfuk.org.uk/blog
----
|