The Stare

The shallows along this narrow sandbar
tell you about plain stillness,
the spellbound time of salt and marshland.
There’s a half-sunk chair covered in marsh green
and an old engine’s rusty gears
and the usual scattered tins and plastic bottles,
the hard to avoid here-and-now, our dumped selves
we can’t get rid of.
But almost unimaginable behind Torcello’s
bell tower, in that cleansing aloneness.
The rubbish, you tell me, has always been there,
one with that stretch of mud.
For a reason, I think, for some unageing
particular carelessness.
Part of the picture by now, part of the quiet.
Part of these mute outlines on the slippery path.
Where long ago I saw a boatman walking towards me,
wearing a grey muddied coat and clogs,
retirement, isolation—I remember I thought,
rowing in his early days along weeds
that didn’t hide the nakedness of the channels.
The lapping. The still mud. The stare.