Heavy clouds, a graphite smudge
Scraped across the page.
Waves against the sky-line nudge
The view to form a stage.
To the left a distant promontory,
Slips into the sea,
The unspoken commentary,
Of a day that’s yet to be.
To the right the yachts are reeling
Against a stubborn moor,
Eager to be keeling
As they did the day before.
. The day is but a sketchy draft,
. A script both fore and aft.

© Tim Grace, 19 September 2010

To the reader: This wordscape ties together the natural forms of a dawning day at the coast. A beautiful but not unique coast. A familiar coast to anyone who has looked across a bay to view a thin line of sand dividing the sea from green cascading hills. Picture perfect moments, as with mental postcards, become the long lasting memories of time and place. It’s the perfectly familiar view that with a rising sun stamps the scene as finished; with nature’s signature attached.

To the poet: That a poem might be framed to a wall in place of a picture is a tall order. The confines of a poet’s language are less universal than are the strokes of a painter’s brush. But in this sonnet the words attempt to place themselves on the page so as to replicate, not just describe, the scene. As suggested, the poem has a sketchy tone to its verbal drafting which provides the elements with a sense of movement and animation.

graphite smudge