(for Frank Porter, 1889-1916)

Morning sun silvered the poplar leaves
Somewhere others lay in the cut clay, waiting 
And I smelt the sea’s dead things
As I walked. 
Kelp, razor shells, crabs, limpets

We laughed and swam in sandy craters
And I walked
By Goat’s Water, the Old Man looked down
As he had for all my life 
And all those other lives before
The smell of wet bracken, sphagnum, washed slate
The thunder of machines in the quarry,
Blown rock crushing against rock 
Gazing out to Bardsea
The bay, silted and sinuous with soft sand 
And the scent of a gentle, smiling girl
whose fingers flickered in mine
As we walked
Mother’s scones, hot from the black oven
Father’s pipe tap-tapping on the mantelpiece
The heat of it in my hand
All this I saw and felt and smelt
And loved
As I walked 
Into the light.