This October’s high water has almost reached
the top of the sea wall, its lapping
silenced by two oafish nabobs on jet skis –
iconoclasts shattering the seascape
of the Straits. Rain clouds along the mainland
are lifting, greyness lightening, slowly
becoming white – revealing early Autumn’s
gradual alchemy. Two porpoises
surface briefly out in the deepest channel,
swimming, in the remnants of the Gulf Stream,
from Cardigan Bay to Liverpool Bay.
As the tide drains northwards over Lavan Sands
from the unexpected south a cold breeze blows.
A great crested grebe – a freshwater bird
only on sea coasts in winter – is fishing
among the moored cruisers, their pennants
tremulous in the wind.
By David Selzer