Gravity

The footway we walk sketches brown 

lines on green fields that seem to hover 

over the Irish Sea. All around us sheep 

and cows hold their mouths to grass, 

unmindful of heaven. This perpetual path 

traces cliffs, cuts into rock, curdles to mud, 

descends onto beaches of rock draped in 

laver fronds, home to codling and flounder. 

Kelp, clams, fishermen, children who 

splash and swim, all know the sea’s routine. 

Even Annie the cab driver knows the tidal 

ways: in out in out days nights unending. 

It’s the far away sun and the pale moon.

We are new to this isle, walk the age-old 

ring around it, study a chart of days in May 

till we know the minute sea rise hits 

its highest, sinks to its lowest on the shores 

of Moelfre, Cemaes, Red Wharf Bay, and 

Puffin Island where rats have captured the roost.

Under May’s full moon water surges 23 feet, 

then falls away, a film rewound to its start.  

When the shore goes dry, tide pools become

small seas. People throw sticks, dogs bound out 

on a shimmering beach. Boats sit askew with

nothing to do. We walk the expanse of sand, 

sink into rivulets still flowing back to the sea. 

It’s the far away sun and the pale moon,

silence of unseen forces,

unremitting.

© Marti Snell, 2017

Traeth Mawr begins to emerge as the waters ebb
Photo by Eric Jones
from Wikimedia Commons