All the photos in this post were taken by my husband on a wild and stormy day at Walberswick.
The poem I’m sharing with you today was written at a previous New Year. We nearly missed the foot ferry between Southwold and Walberswick while out on a long winter’s walk with our family. It ran till sunset – and sunset was upon us. Today, I’m glad for this poem, glad I wrote it and by it am able to remember this magical evening at the turn of the year, the time we spent together on this Walberswick walk, and the strange feeling of being suspended between the two shores, the two closed gates, in the hands of the ferryman whose course was sure even though it seemed to slant so across the water.
So too with time, in the space between two years, when we look back at what has been, and look forward to what will be. We are glad to spend time with those we love, and perhaps especially miss those who are not with us. Love glimmers in this golden limpid darkness between times.
Perhaps in this space we can dream of a shore with warm, welcoming lights, with togetherness, with hope. Perhaps we may find we can be such a shore for each other, and keep lights of hope and welcome burning in the long cold nights.
May you have a blessed, happy new year. Thank you so much for your time and company on this blog. I value that gift very much.
I’ve shared with you another poem about winter walking along this shore, and a murmuration of starlings. Such an awe inspiring dance of togetherness. You can read that here.
Crossing the Blyth at sunset, at the turn of the year.
We walked fast towards the ferry – nearly too late – and saw the ferryman on the other side, the gate closed behind him. But we waved, and he came, his blue boat a long wide curve across the river.
Behind him the setting sun, the treeshapes black against the orange sky, How beautiful it is. He helps us on board, offering me his hand with nautical courtesy, and then shuts the gate firmly behind us.
So we thank him, and our blue boat begins to churn those golden waters rippling with a fast tide, as we seem to hang for a time between those two closed gates, between those two jetties, in neither one space, nor the other. We are somewhere else instead, where all is gold, where darkness lies behind, where the lights of the houses and the wide-open pub are ahead of us, lights that warm with the hope of welcome.
We are suspended for a while in this Adnams-blue boat with the diesel and the saltsmell and the cry of the birds, bathed in light, trailing an ice hand in water the same colour as the light. Here we are. This moment. Between two moments. How beautiful it is.
Last month we took a few days to visit Norfolk, staying by the Wash. UK viewers of Winter Watch and others may have seen some awe-inspiring film of one of the UK’s greatest wildlife events – sometimes called the Snettisham Spectacular. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to see it for yourself. We decided we’d go and try and catch this sight, when a very high tide drives the birds off the mix of saltmarsh and water, into the air in huge flocks, and down into lagoons cared for by the RSPB. Their website (linked above) will help you get a taste of what its like, as well as some information about when these high tides happen.
Of course, there are never any guarantees with nature, but we got up very early and went to Snettisham in the dark, on a cold February morning, full of anticipation. I’d decided on flasks of coffee – which turned out to be an excellent idea! It was the most moving experience, deeply awe-inspiring, to see a landscape so full of life, and the wildness behaving freely as it should. I am sure that there have been times when there were more birds, and more wild, here, but it was nonetheless a glimpse of a more beautiful world, the world closer to how it should and can be.
You may also be aware that this precious landscape is vulnerable, and a new development could have a huge impact. If you want to find out more about that, you could begin here.
I wanted to try and capture the beauty of what we saw, and also the depth of experience that aroused in us and the others perhaps who were gathered there, and so this poem recounts the journey through the dark, and into the dawn-light of this beautiful sight.
Out in the Wash-marsh, the dark-before-dawn, we walked uncertainly, deeper in, listening warily for water sounds, mud sounds, as we heard, out on our right, the loudness of bird and tide. Restless, growing, imminent.
The path seemed so long in the dark, unknowing and unseeing as we were. On and on until at last we came out of hedge-shadows and reed rustles, out on the open bank of shingle, with a chill wind blowing, with the dark softening into the grey of mist and ice-fret, as out of the greyness emerged a gathering crowd, moving, looking, watching that density of black birds emerging too, out there on the mudbanks and sandbanks, crowding as the water was rising, All prickling with anticipation, all readying for flight.
Through a lens you could see the black backs of oystercatchers, tens of thousands, all facing one way, bright beaks aligned like many compasses.
And further out, paler knots, rippling over the shrinking land, their voices sounding together as water lapped and lapped ever deeper, full of fish washed in on this rapid tide, followed by the hungry seals, heads up, and hunting.
The bird noise grows, and the waders begin their great lift, A few at first, tip toed, up and down like dancers performing the perfect jete. Then, as waves pour over their islands and there is no room for all these birds,
They lift and stay lifted, from the edges, like a great cloth, swirling now above fast running water rilled with small waves.
And then the oystercatchers begin to pour like dark smoke, like sentient smoke, as one, all to the right, pour down into the lagoons behind us.
While the knots, catching the rising light, rise too, turning pale now, loud with cries and loud too with wings, like a great crowd running joyously, like a shining cloud swirling in the wind but with mind, with being, with will, a great pale creature rustling and winding through the air over us, close and low, and then down in a whispering snake’s head behind.
And again, and again, rise up more swirls of birds, faster and wider by the tens of thousands, of wings all together, birds turning together, a miracle of unity,
As wings beat like hurried feet as more people rush to look up, and the waves take more and more ground from under us all.
And I cannot tell you what joy, what exultation – And I write from longing to tell you what joy, what exultation, we humans, standing, feel in this wide and wild abundance, this wild and wide abandon. This deep unity, this wide-wild-eyed seeing into the communion of things.
As a sudden sound is added even to all this loud crescendo, like thunder, like jets,
The rise and beating of great wings – pink footed geese beyond number, beyond measure,
filling the sky with clouds of moving birds, spinning fast now into great skeins that wind over the deep distance, loud and louder bright on the dawn,
Bright with the wonder of wings lifting, Bright in this new, steady, giddying light. A light that washes through us all A light that holds us all As dawn breaks us wide open.
I hope this gives you a glimpse of how beautiful a sight it was, and how transformative.
Yesterday evening I had the great privilege of reading this poem to open a series of talks organised by the Woodbridge Climate Action Centre. Local friends, tickets are free, and are going fast. The series is called Regenerating Living Landscapes, Working with Nature.
It is possible that a recording of last night’s event may become available. If it does, I’ll make sure there’s a link to it here.
19th May Note: As you can see from the list above, tonight is the last talk in the series. Once again I’m delighted to have been asked to read something, and the poem I’m going to read is A Good Place, which is also on this blog. As usual, click through to read it.
Andrea Skevington 