Beachmaster

a poem about slipping away

                             I

Often the one becomes the many, 
out here in airy Knockinelder Bay.
Ponies proud-footing over pottery
in the shingle-bars and the saltmarsh
shatter the dolmens in such profane 
proportion as to empty Annwn for a day.
 
              II

The sea is its own 
banshee; drowned
in tears, and bound 
by the fisherman's 
rope, too tied up 
to provoke 
the black star 
of the grass-soaked 
Converse, eclipsed 
by its own loping 
tongue, one 
over the other; 
lying laces; limp limbs
on a sloping slipway. 

                     III

Out there, in the wake, Arawn 
enters the water, angered, 
in the guise of a gannet; 
in the unity of the fullness 
of the feathers;
of the stillness of the breathhold; 
of the fanning of the wings 
on the breakfall, unseen, 
on the other side of the meniscus. 

             IV

Here, on the shore
he appears again - 
flipping shells 
with a big stick;
little boy bruises 
on the balls of his feet; 
daring not to show 
the pain of mortality;
stalling to purse
the purple hips
of the low-growing 
burnet, between 
the pull of the sea 
and the laughter of gulls
(that stammered discography) - 
murmuring whispered retractions
to those who cannot retort.