Horsey Seals

Another poem inspired by the Norfolk landscape. I went for a week's holiday in my parents' cottage recently. On our last day in Norfolk, we parked the car at Horsey Gap and went in search of grey seals.

Horsey Seals

Sea-grass slices our legs in the dunes
and I'm pushed slantwise by wind.

Here, sky stretches side to side til we stand

on a postage stamp of sand,

holding each other up like drunks.

Binoculars forgotten, I can barely see

a black speck break the water,

melt into a sleek head.

Another rides the collapsing

crest of a wave, sailing through seething shallows.

The sea has bitten cliffs to the quick all along

this coast, but their bodies cut the water

like blades.

Back in the car, rain runs blurred down the windows
and the radio clicks on with a twist of the dial.