POEM TITLE
Blackness Mudlark
POEM
Blackness Mudlark
After the storm,
that howling night,
then this reluctant dawn,
I walk along the foreshore,
eyes half mast, cagouled.
I have a bucket to fill,
before heading for lunch
in the Lobster Pot.
Thrum, thrum, thrum.
The rain was supposed to have stopped by now.
My tidal river spat out treasures on to rocks,
sand and sundry. Blackness Bay, a mess.
I squint at this scene of destruction.
Timetravelling tin cans, bruised,
ripped to shreds, perfectly undertowed,
still keen to tell their side of the story,
what’s left of it, half lives,
hoping for eyewitnesses, for this,
their last ever spill. I promise,
I will tell their tale of separations.
Frosted seaglass, craven,
blunt, clink, clunk, clunk,
vying for late adoption,
no sensible offer refused .
Blind shards sigh in my wet hands, sing.
A gospel choir of frozen ghosts!
I will beat their rhythm, clink for clunk.
Broken oyster shells,
a dozen unsightly, grey tectonic plates,
flung from the toothless mouth of beyond,
crunching, crumbling under my feet,
no need to ask them where the problem lies.
It’s been all too much. I apologize.
I will add splinters of their loss to my poem.
Each lick and further lap of Forth
regurgitates dropped souls, the lost, forgotten,
now tangled in seaweed and wizened sweetie wrappers.
Firth gathers, but can not quite digest unwanted gifts.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
Dripping, drenched,
I begin to understand
why my bucket is still empty.
I gaze at Blackness Castle,
securely anchored,
no matter what storm.
I count bridges,
spanning centuries, communities.
And then, I look down,
there’s the mud, silt, sediment.
There’s my 20th century soul
in slightly leaky wellie boots,
slowly sinking into this riverbed
filled with flotsam and jetsam,
beggars, from who knows where and when,
none of them able to find their place,
instead they gasp at what’s solid in this world.
Somehow, all of this resonates.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
I came here to assess
the damage after the storm.
I guess, I did.
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