First And Last

A good while since I've sat for a full hour in my car watching the sea:
Sandymount Strand well-peopled with couples, dog-walkers,
kite flyers, joggers, children with grandparents

the cloud-ribbed sky's pale slightly luminous blue
a blue you could paint from memory

thins to slate-purples, silvery-lead-grey-green-navy-blues,
the kind of colours Whistler favoured;

thins to less and less walkers anchored by their reflections in the wrinkled wet;

thins and flattens to the blackening scratched wall of the horizon
the city a smouldering layer, a cold old fire

a plane a stray spark lifting, and your final ferry pinholed
with yellow light, the first star cluster, going, going
sliding off on cue beyond Howth

into the incised shipping lanes, the partings


NB
Here's a thing. Just noticed that the pic I took one year ago is ALSO of Sandymount Strand (from a different angle, looking back towards the shore). Synchronicity.