Lynne Wycherley
J W M Turner At Margate Harbour
A piece of jet in a driftwood crowd,
he sits by the foreshore, squat
as a crow. Small in black cape
and large shoes, a shabby top hat.
His grey eyes gauge the distance.
Shales of light, the heft of the sea:
his love. A steamboat juts
its shadow, flagged with steam.
All life is here. Visitors pour
from the steam packets, flocks
of many plumes. On Jarvis’s
landing place, John Rennie’s pier.
Across buff paper his crabbed hand flies.
Catching moments mid-air.
Eight women in the wind —
brown stabs on warm sand,
a brick-ash by blue, a sly tide
on the move, a white sail
tilting its solo wing
by the energetic gash of the jetty
while edges hint through,
a rind of breakers by Fulsam rocks,
a storm-ridge lifting
through a burnt mist of sky —
the whole restless, present, alive.
Crossing the breakwaters
of two centuries: the skill
of his hands, the gift of his eyes.
Page(s) 54
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