POEMS/
What the Shore Said
​

---

NORTH BERWICK BEACH, ANNE SHIVAS

What the Shore Said

I screech, am steep cliff, surging water,
strand, dune and marram grass,
shell and bone hollow, rolled to sand,
spume, white horses’ manes on surf,
gannet guzzling mackerel; am blood
anemone, buckies, bladderwrack, kelp,
thrum of a guitar. Upturned empty
crab, blue volcanic scooped out rock,
oyster catcher cooried doon on one leg,
I am crow, hopping. Herring gull, I sail
close to the wind, am sea pink, pink weed,
am snow-strewn, ice sheets cracked,
am an eye, wide open, rooted, children’s voices,
fire and song, bud, wee shoals o fish
in slips o waves, broad and flat.
I didn’t know un-seeable nets
flip-flops, rose hip, wellie boots,
could be woven around me,
flounder and dog, T-shirts, cagoules.
Salt, gusty, calm, raging, I didn’t know
the gods would haul me, dolphin,
porpoise, killer whale, krill back,
pull us in by our dreams.