Posts Tagged mussels
GOOD HOPE
Pegram's Point, Cape Province, SA
At her back, the South Atlantic’s rolling seas,
those ice blue waters, break, skittering
on the silver sands. Burgeoning with child,
she smiles for the camera, as always
optimistically. Mussels encrust the rock
she leans on, kelp bobs like seals on the foam
and Southern Right Whales blow almost out of sight.
Due west, across the unbroken miles,
is Buenos Aires and the teeming hectares
of the Americas. We turn inland. An ostrich
high steps through proteas and heathers,
a tortoise navigates the undergrowth.
Some flowers bloom only after fire. Good choice
to be here on this cape of storms and wrecks.
She carries so many of our pasts -
refugees and indigenes, blacksmiths
and architects, poets and sea captains…
That first image of the future, of something
commonplace, something extraordinary,
will surface without summons, rise instantly,
engulf her forever.
FOR THOSE IN PERIL
 PARADISE ISLAND, BAHAMAS
 The sting ray slipped from the azure surface
of the narrow, empty sound, its wings
and tail so large and swimming in the air
for what seemed so long, we stared, speechless,Â
and, after it had gone, said: ‘Did you see
what I did?’ and looked along the silver beach
for others who’d seen but no one seemed amazed.
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MIRABELLA GULF, CRETE
 Under the cobalt waters are mermaids,
Minoans, Cretans, Venetians, Turks, Britons,
Germans, lepers. Above are ferryboats,
jet skis and mottled sea snakes which slither
like sibilants onto flat rocks beside
the corniche. ‘Look,’ I say. You do - and shudder.
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DEGANWY PROMENADE, WALES
 We watch the Conwy mussel fishers, each
in his own skiff, at low tide, rake the bed,
see the shells clatter into buckets, hear
the men joshing - an immemorial trade.
We find a piece of driftwood - no bigger
than a pocket knife - chafed by sand, stone, oceans.
Because of the knot in the wood, the sea
could only shape it as a tail and head,
one side a snake’s eye, the other a ray’s.
Chance, symmetry and perseverance…
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