This piece features in the forthcoming collection "Driftwords", which contains some poems by me and some by Eve Nortley.

 

Castaways

 

Some say the sea is constant

but I can feel a change beneath the surface.

The tide is turning with heightened hope,

a sense of altered courses,

Different purpose.

 

I present you with a Whitby-bought silver necklace,

an anchor chain symbol,

A ship-to-shore signal

for the risky or the reckless.

The strand we wander hand-in-hand

walking the line twixt water and sand,

Look eastwards to hope on the horizon,

the line of sea and sky

marks the veil between today, tomorrow

and times and tales and travellers gone by,

long gone...

 

Come far…come here...come home.

 

Intently, intensely we wonderingly gaze

to find some clue beneath the waves,

A pattern we can follow to future, fated days.

A smile, a kiss, a beacon beam

to the world,

A choice is made.

We turn our backs to troubled land

and our separate pasts,

And plunge into our common element,

water-signs like sailors' knots entwined,

Set sail for a future that lasts,

we chart our course, the line is cast.

 

The sun and yellow stars and we

will rise above another shore,

we make for homes and harbours new,

havens safe and warm,

See lightning flashing in the sky,

look with sea-blue passion eyes

and make our quiet storm.