Offshore beyond all tides, but those of time,
wreckage of a Mulberry Harbour
scars the bay at low water, a living memory
to just about no one now. Its warning buoy
seems, from where I am, to tilt at peace
in waves so short they're almost calm.
The world on the other side waxes and wanes,
now promising rain with prophetic clarity,
now keeping its word in a leaden barrage.

'The Lancasters taking off from Baldoon
had seven minutes to make it over Cairnsmore,'
an ancient mariner tells me; and I look
towards the invisible hill to get the measure of it,
to hear their din in my mind's ear.
My grandfather, born here a blacksmith's son,
managed a production line that made them.
...