Low tide: love’s wrack and ship’s ruin
where green is the colour of treachery.
Nowhere in these narrow islands
as alien - or enticing -
as this crab-happy place
between rock and difficult sea.
For there’s a well of wonders here:
the fronds and orifice of the sea-anemone
that tenacious pyramid, the limpet
claw of cantankerous lobster
and sculpted pools, as clear as music.
Be bold enough to hold your station
by remorseless waters,
the waves insistent
on the heart’s tide’s turning.
A sojourn in a dripping cave
may bestow its token:
a charm or shell
to carry home
courtesy of the moon.
| 
