For C.

Painting by Monet.

Salt waves and red rowans

There are times and days
when rain falls straight to the quick,
fills hollow bones and bilges
of the boat with white sails,
but the sails are still full, course set.

Sea, wave-chopped, wrinkled,
a silk garment from the days
when riches were a childhood,
a full belly, and dreams
of sailing to the honey land.

On this windswept hill,
beneath rain and bare-leafed trees,
I smell salt waves, hear the north
sing its songs of rowans
red, thrushes and the coming spring.