Beyond The Territory of Water
(In Response to The Territory of Water by Clare Crossman)

On Neptune Street
you may dream of the tide,
its drag and lure
but your feet walk
on solid pavement.
The bag weighted on your shoulder,
in cahoots with gravity,
pulls you in towards the ground.
This is the domain of earth
within the parameters of town.
A place to put down roots,
grow certain.

In this sure harbour
everything has its territory:
clod, flame, breath and breaker

but follow the line of gull up
into the watery expanse of sky,
walk away from certain,
to where the waves heave
their last salty gasp
and the land runs into sea,
you find a place of mergings and meltings,
black wet shingle, sodden brown sand
tide-strewn seaweed damply clinging
to a green surface that is
sometimes by the water
sometimes under water
sometimes the roaring sea itself.
The shore, the strand,
a place that is no place
where boundaries crumble
allegiances change and everything
is margin.
From here you can leave
or come back
but never stay.
How can you rest somewhere
that cannot remember itself?

J.S.Watts is a novelist and poet. She has published nine books: five of poetry, “Cats and Other Myths”, “Years Ago You Coloured Me”, “Songs of Steelyard Sue”, “The Submerged Sea” and “Underword”, plus four novels.  See www.jswatts.co.uk &  facebook.com/J.S.Watts