The Windbreaks
The beach that day could have been a Monet,
the way the wind brushed the high dune grasses
and clouds daubed the sky.
All space and light.
The people on the beach, among them you and I,
are just people-shaped holes in a painting now –
nonsensical blobs of white weave.
But the windbreaks
still move with brighter yellows and bloodier reds
than even Monet would have mixed. And more
than that, they breathe and tremble,
they speak
of tickling and wagging; straining, they sing
with their secret in-out language, moved by the wind,
about the mysterious sifting and glistening
of sand.
This poem was published in Magma, in 2014.
The illustration above is from one of Monet’s various clifftop scenes, I’m not sure which one…
Wood Bee Poet 