The bulky slip for the revenuer's boat,
here still, unused for its purpose now, steep,
with a more salubrious paved landing place
out to the left, a boat on there, angled.
An extensive tumble of rock, weed-blackened,
up to the height of another boat, on grass,
upon a trolley, an inflatable,
and then there's overgrowth of dense bramble
right to the top of what is visible here.
A concrete quay, atop and round the old,
white markings for hoi polloi; and steel posts
for chains to control crowds; parcels; packets
to be collected; plastic sheets and sacks
of various forms; all most tidily clean
in a way suggesting work's getting done
and life is being lived with good effort.
A slightly rippling sea through burnishing light,
scatterings of markers upon its moving shine,
tethered rowing boats in scintillation
up to the shrinking tombolo.
Columns
of Scilly Whites near to The Gugh coast edge,
cultivated plots outweighted by noise
from others which have self-planted for years
of being untended, unstraightened, left.
[Scilly Whites are a type of daffodil]
-----
Lawrence Upton
Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
----
|