FLAMBOROUGH, LIGHTHAVEN

The huge window connects you

with land and sky,

a stretch of still dry winter grass

and trees and shrubs until

the horizon and the sea behind,

a picture of waving lines

settled in their own flourish

in widespread permanence

with clouds that are

present as a wholeness behind the glass

claiming most space ( it’s their right),

claiming and obtaining wholeness,

the picture of a staring breath,

what you find yourself staring at

with no particular plan in mind,

with no purpose for once, nothing

to forward or realize,

you are just mutely drawn into the stare

and you stand and watch over there

the fat woodpigeons, two alert deer

and some cruising wild geese,

the moment’s lease,

the space where this is what comes to pass

behind a frame of double-glazed glass,

a further pageant you have come across,

the world transiting in transfixing nonchalance

with you and me, the living and the dead,

transiting too, in thread after thread..

and all the rest goes unsaid.