The Sea, The Sea

for Alan Riach and Patrick Crotty

The coast whirls seabirds round
its head, and the tide's scourge
chastens all before it to white sand.
Ink-wash blows away by the page.
There's no such thing as waste in nature
unless man-made.
Everywhere, wave and cloud,
cacophony of sight and sound.
But religion here being made by man
long since sinned itself into oblivion.
A tilted cross like an old minute-hand,
indicates the hour has gone when
upright folk leant on the wind
to wind up here to praise the lord.
...