From the Longshore Bar

all you can see is the sand stretching 

to distant rippled light where the channels meet 

the swash zone, and further still, the sea

you stand on a longshore bar you have made home 

renamed it your private Sandy Island 

but the waves invade soaking your trainers

and of course there are the rocks too

all around you, half sunken

the volcanic ruins between the island

and the wide flat beach of the berms 

and the back shore

slumped in the windblown sand dunes

ancient walls, some sort of windmill -

all those nameless things covered in sand

sinking ever deeper each passing year

you walk the shoreline gathering olivine 

to the beach-face and wash them clean

only to drop them again as you leave

then at home in the dimming dusk you

sing daft songs to the cats who watch you

who can't take their eyes off you 

until one day one vanishes 

and you find she has gone forever

lost or killed or her loyalty you'd imagined

so you wander around the village streets

and into the disused farm buildings

hoping you’ll find her there

and within rat-scuffed walls a hoopoe

desiccated, withered and unfurled

face-down in the grit and dust