RECLAIMED LAND


Strong sunlight and lengthening shadow
locked in battle
this late-summer day,
vying for territory
like anchored stripey windbreaks

Neither are the bluebottles lazily content
but instead manically harassing
the solitary living
as if they themselves
were all but dead:

Welsh-seaside summer
on the wane

Quiet is descending from
the brooding rocky outcrops
and brackish dappled summits
high above the salts and seaflats

Dry leaves rustling bid Adieu
as the last retreating
caravan with trailer
nods farewell
and heads for home,
craning
for one last glimpse of the sea
as it rocks
down the narrow twisted track
that nurses jealously her blackberries


The mellowed watercolour landscape
yields a hushed sigh
and bleeds her blue-brown coastal colours:
Now comes the season
of mists and ample fruitfulness;

The land glories in her bounty...

now she is relaxed and restored