Flood Tide over the Mudflats

Water creeps across the mud
Water rises up the pole
Slowly as a wet sloth
It creeps up the creeks
Invades the silent reed beds
Pours down the lugworm holes
Causing bubbles to rise, muddy.

Gently lifts the clinker hulls
Stirs the orange buoys
And seeps into the harbour
Walls, covering barnacles
And limpets on the piles.

Frothy line rolls over
The mudflats filling hollows
Climbing up the shingle banks
As under a blanket
It moves beneath the
Mist and murk of early
Morning, long before the
Sun has risen aloft.

Martin Delemare
5th August 2006.