‘Seals Basking Upon A Cape Cod Beach’

 

March days stretch away

Down to the waterside

Second highest rise and fall

Of tide in the whole world.

Or so I once was told

Canada’s ‘The Bay of Fundy’

Trumps the muddy River Severn

But who is measuring, anyway ?

 

Not me. I’m happy simply to see it

Each new today day as I open my eyes

No surprise surprises. A river content

To play its part and chart the boundary

Between ‘The Forest of Dean’

And ‘The Land of my Fathers’

Unequivocally and unremarkably

Fresh Wye water meandering down.

 

Meandering down and along 

The Bristol Channel to The Irish Sea.

Past Portishead and sleepy Clevedon

Where once the Pier almost fell down

And we go on day trips with my brother

And eat fish and chips gazing over

The muddy waters, singing their song.

Severn sidling past my once home town.

 

Cardiff. Once world famous

For shipping coal around the globe

Now prim and proper and parochial

A place surprisingly unsurprising.

Then ‘Sabrina’ as the Romans named it

Heads westwards, past Barry Island

With its candy floss charm

And ‘Cwtch me quick’ allure.

 

Before a genuflexion to Penarth

Wearing its ‘tidy’  Mothball smelling

‘Sunday Best’ of ‘Yesteryear’

On, tidally dancing between

Flat Holm and Steep Holm

Islands in the Stream of Severn flow

As before you know it we are flotsam

Floating by Porthcawl and Rest Bay.

 

‘The Grand Pavilion’ where for years

Dear dad performed upon the stage

And thrilled audiences of all ages

In Pantomimes and Summer Shows.

‘Happy days’ indeed they were.

The scene of my teenage days ebbing

And the dream of adulthood dawning.

Cambridge and far away East Anglia.

 

Beyond that all swiftly becomes

Unrecognised and unrecognisable

‘Terra Incognita’ as the seaward tide

Touches North Somerset.

Licks and laps against

The rocky outcrops of Devon

And takes a Cornish cream tea

Before The Irish Sea consumes it .

 

The Irish  Sea  unceremoniously

Takes  ‘Sabrina’ into its salty arms

And rolls and ‘roisters’ with it

Upon the seabed of sensuality

Until ‘starfish’ come out to play

And all the live long day

Like mini suns and constellations

Water begets water ever more .

 

Begets until my little Gloucestershire river

Grows up and weds The Atlantic Ocean

Bound for the magic far away New World

To tell old tales of where it came from

The the seals in Massachusetts

Who let the trace waters of The Wye

Wash the salt tears from the eyes

As they bask on beaches far away.

 

Seals muse about a place unseen

And day dream of an old world

Seals basking  upon a Cape Cod beach

In ‘far away’ New England.

 

Roger Stennett

15-3-26