Published in Poetry Monthly 139
Oystercatcher
There is no horizon today as the sea blends
into the steely sky to loom heavily over me.
I hear the mournful cries of the lighthouses,
that stand either side of safety’s home,
guardians of the mariners’ journeys.
A heaviness within the mist,
seeming to float in an invisible sky,
drifts silently towards the city.
Water laps at the wall surrounding
the tiny beach of pebbles
where a single oystercatcher stares
bewildered into the hidden bay,
before prodding beneath a pebble
seeking a shellfish,
to return to sentry duty, disappointed,
waiting for the world to reappear.
