Hurricane Katia’s tail-edge

(Llŷn peninsula, north-west Wales, September12&13)

Lashing, dying hurricane tail,
bashing, pushing, gusty gale:
whirling map-bag – whipping, slapping;
wrenching hat to make it rocket,
– swift uncapping –
safe in pocket.
Cliff-path aerial view
of heaving ocean, swelling, welling,
billows surging, restless, vast,
clashing spray plumes hurled with blast
on battered jagged rock-spikes cast;
wide-spread ‘horses’ rising, rearing,
– white manes flying, flecks bedecking.

Crashing, rushing waves on bays of sand,
surfers drifting in to land,
back again for riding, sliding,
dipping, slipping under,
– wind reviving glowing vigour.

September 14 Softened winds, a rippled ocean,
tranquil floor of turquoise-green,
or steely-grey, with sunlight bands of glittering gleam,
and cloud-shaped shadows here and there,
wild ‘white-horses’ drowned or sunk below,
to where
potential turbulence hugged, asleep,
down in depths of fathoms deep.