Each cardinal point tells of Wasteland.
Primordial sand shifting
under a frozen wind,
hissing with the voices of spirits
shipwrecked on this skeleton coast,
rimmed by a glittering line of sea.
​
Here castaway fragments and relics
are spat after decades adrift
from the blue-throated Ocean
and maw of Estuary.
Husks of things rustle
With the dry scuttle of grains
At the feet of crumbling dunes -
Earth's ebbing with each tide to feed
The ever-hungry sea.
​
Living footfalls trace this place of endings
With crunch of empty shell
A crisp-brittle crack of lost urchins:
Calcium Carbonate - chalk to dust
In a driftwood boneyard.
​
But with each turn of a gypsy moon's face
All is washed and re-framed,
Shell innards polished to spirals of pearl,
Pastel-shaded plastic tears pepper the edge of the world.
​
You see the broken beauties, pull them free
Fill your pockets, gaze on the skittish sea
That calls your salted blood.
And loosens the anchor
To land-stranded love.
​
Your heart sails to the Shearwater's realm,
Hears the call of the storm,
And the lure of the helm.