25th September 2020
I wake in time to see the clock turn over two.
As the night kettle noises towards boiling
And the World Service serves its hourly brew
Of awful news and the latest international lies,
Something makes me unclip catches, quietly step out.
No wind; a cloudless sky, all stars!
So many stars, for no competing moon:
Thus when, right overhead, a meteor streaks,
I know I have no choice.
Tea downed, smartly ready and out –
Glad in this sparkled damson-dense darkness
To know from many years my quiet-trod way.
Huge, now, the beach: I cross a not-Man’s-land of sand
Only dried by a tide such as this, one of the lowest of the year.
A spring so bay-emptying, the rock where I always leave my clothes
Is many sand-padding yards from the sea’s hushed edge…
Stars!
The Milky Way arching so silently dense;
Right down to the horizon, all around, bright Constellations.
Another shooting star! And, as if that’s not enough,
As I walk to the far-retreated sea
Stars are at my feet, mirror-glimmering the flat wet sand.
The Atlantic, only ripple breaking tonight.
At first, around my ankles, sparse phosphorescence;
But, at almost waist deep, suddenly my legs
Are bewitched by billowing green,
Bright clouds of that fugitive glitter so many people never see,
Although they easily could.
I lean forward to swim, now,
Breasting green fire of such beauty and wisdom too;
For its fluorescing flow lines
Show how I move the water and,
When I move through the water,
How it moves around me:
The minute swirlery of each spread finger,
Every whispery ribbon of betraying turbulence
As vainly I try to waterslip dolphin-sleek.
As ever, although I know it pointless,
I can’t resist once out of depth to breath up and dive down;
As always the phosphorescence seems inside my eyes,
Flash-blinding worse than blizzard snow in blazing headlights.
Soon as I’m out of the water
The Universe’s icy fingers reach all around
On this so-calm night
Infinitely open to the blazing dead cold of space:
Accustomed, though, I reach my towel unshivery;
But that grab for its fibrous friction is glad enough!
And I bare sand run, tonight, gratefully close under the browing cliffs
Whose dark masses still retain some Indian Summer warmth.
Plough left, Orion ahead, bright Mars red and right,
I homeward mutter disapproval of the false dawn
With which those dirty industries brighten the eastern horizon:
Without them, an even richer starscape.
But mine are only mild chides –
For who is luckier than me, when I’ve just had such a swim…?
…And not even at the cost of lost sleep;
For, had I not ventured out, I’d have surely lain awake abed
Thinking of the starscape and seaglow I was missing.
© Christopher Jessop 2020
