soft loamy sand beneath curling brine <br />seagulls screeching <br />cormorants stretching <br />terns and puffins and guillemots <br />buffeting their feathery bodies <br /> <br />anticipating the casting nets <br />from ‘Dancing Waters’ <br />such fragile wood <br />primed and hewn <br />to race and spin against cotton tides <br /> <br />galoshed men in salt-splashed spray <br />tugging at heavy, drowned nets <br />iron hooks grasping onto bitter mouths <br />innocently caught by the dancing worms <br />dancing in the waters <br /> <br />and ‘Dancing Waters’ dances on the waters <br />taking home the catch <br />to feed the mouths of suckling mothers <br />pregnant with new life <br />while the sea – all dried up <br />repeats its life cycle<br /><br />Penny Hemans<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dancing-on-waters/
