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I stand at the island’s highest point,

and watch the chaos of the sea,

and will myself to step out.

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Looking west towards Newfoundland.

The sour festive season,

shrugged away,

lies hidden somewhere inland under blankets.

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Out in the bay: the jumping-rock;

the epoch of summer afternoons that paid in arrears,

once drunk with life,

now neglected black.

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The wind a whisk lathers sea-foam as an offering

to the gunmetal sky,

its drab confetti replacing hidden birds.

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The beach I knew is pulverised to Dresden squalor:

dunes destroyed,

rocks scraped bare like rotten gums,

nothing as it was.

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This is the narrowest span of the island,

dissolving with each winter swell

along some plotted course.

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I see the daily faces of those troubled souls,

with self-help books and guided meditation

who sigh and plot for hidden luck.

They rattle underground,

breathing slow and steady,

seeking change.

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Some day soon.

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But change is relative to the constant,

and the beach cuts inward

to the east.

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The rumble,

quarry-deep,

as waves invent new tide-ways for the sea,

Drowns out the whispered rumours of calm,

steady times.