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,

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.

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.

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…

Photograph: ‘Aber Falls’ – © SCES 2000

Anger, despair – torrential, unstoppable -
possesses me, unprompted. Undeserved,
you suffer it like hail. It leaves no signs.
Your heart is adamant, ever yielding.

Rainwater, falling on the marshy uplands,
courses through the thick glacial veneer -
beneath the main road near the chip shop,
past second homes and holiday lets,
under the promenade and by the pub -
onto the beach and into the oceans.

Safe behind glass, from our rented apartment,
white and spare like a sepulchre or a flag,
we watch a storm rise far out at sea then roll
inexorably towards us, obscuring
all – and hammer on our window like a door.

At low tide, we walk along the sands and round
the headland, rooks rising in clacking dudgeon
from the high rocks. In the wide estuary,
a solitary egret fishes. Returning,
at high tide, through littoral woods of elder
and ash, we walk at the foot of the sandstone cliffs –
rainwater flowing from fissures, seeping
into silent pools edged by ferns and fronds.

On the horizon: a warship anchors
at the ebb in Holyhead’s sea roads;
Manx is a stretch of cloud; and the Great Orme
the sea serpent the first Norsemen named it,
half submerged, sleeping or waiting.