Language, Observation

In my book-burdened heart I see coincidence, everything linked. Books, passion-filled, contain vivid image and smell; a late sunbeam gilding their spine as my mind is carried away, far away to the land of the book or to my own past. African villages, shacks roofed with tin, hills a Chinese scroll, gulls circling inland. A wood-pigeon's coo disturbs such imagery and takes me to Middleton-On-Sea. Language, observation; that's what characters – real and fictional – are made. Affliction, wounds stitched into them and questions curled like sea-horses; sunken galleons rumoured – with skulls and treasures – to be there but never found, too many fathoms deep.

Picture credit: Seahorses in Morecambe, Eric Gill (source: WikiArt).

After Derek Walcott, written June 2022.