Through a Tenby Window

Through the flat, glass windowpane
Blurred and stained by pearls of grey rain,
Lay the once sodden beach.
Which January grey deemed out of reach.
No footprints written in the smooth rake of sand,
That loose shifting orange strip, mere grains of land,
Ironed smooth, pushed to a ridge with a lip so thin,
Where the waves died, to leave a sheet of dried porridge skin.
A moonscape that had escaped high-tide strokes,
That pulled and pushed the hulls of boats,
Which below the painted houses float,
Upon the steel, grey sea that daily tests itself,
Against the land, because little else,
Has passed the times of all the days,
Engaged in such raucous affrays
That last for weeks, and months, and years,
Beneath the moon which drips its tears,
To words spoken in a timeless song
Of how the sea retreats but not for long,
And shushes out its gentle threat,
To return again and do its best,
With drumming beats upon its chest,
And pound its punches on the rocks,
Slap palms and fingers on the docks,
Which men have left, then hid inside,
For come every time there comes a tide,
There roars an ageless conversation,
between dry land and the wet ocean