Graham Ovenden

Sea Memories
(or the first sighting)

Remember how we wildly raced, the first to sight the sea:
then after, when had won the hill, would stop, spellbound
to pant and feast our fill.

Two children caught, transfixed, held, as by some old and mannered art
their figures drawn to mark the moment's mystery.

( Till time shall crack and craze his rime so dull the colour of the mind).

And then those soft, moist, hazy views
which lay-a-cloak and thus confuse …

Oh how we willed to see the silver strip
that with our hopes seemed so to slip into a void.

But then while nature teased and toyed
we'd sense the ribbon light laid from the land, the furthest edge of sea …

And as the ocean cleared to cut the sky
our naked limbs cleaved to the cry …

The sea, the sea, the sea!