On seeing a piece of shoreline driftwood shaped like antlers
There could never have been a young stag
this far into the exposed and open air
not even a startled stray would cross the broad shingle spit
to graze on campion, poppy, false oat grass
and wonder at the lapping sea
no dainty, cloven hooves came this way
tentative - striking flint stones
the stranded antler was seaborne
stripped of its tell-tale bark
just a forked and bleached branchlet
I imagine it felled by October winds
dropped in an inlet, taken by storm
laid by the Spring tides on a pebble-dash bed
and in this oven of a high summer noon, the driftwood bakes
beneath its length, an outlined contour of cobalt
where the yellow waves cannot reach
and the speckled flint and chert
their sea sprayed sandy hues and livid blues
beached to infinity
an ekphrastic poem from memory as link up with the Tuesday Platform
PoetryPix 