A Song for Captain Fenland OR The End of the World
Poppy Kleiser
The sea is the sky is the sun is the sea so
We are lifted off our feet
Reeling in time, tumbled boulders
Pristine amoebas
The weight of the race and the sea
On our shoulders
On the ground
His hands mould around me like the
Clay of a hundred working years
Blue with the memory of water
And the echoed waves
Mate with the wind
To greet his mollusc ears
Land and sea amalgamate
To bring that pigment to his eyes
The elements retire
Into one another
And the spectres
Green, collide
For if we carry on
We will walk to death or the beginning
Or peace so vast it reminds us of
The first consciousness awakening to
The first voice ever singing.
Poppy Kleiser is the Fenland poet laureate. She writes: "influenced by folk song and the radicalism of 18th century Romantic literature, I attempt through both written and spoken word to explore the secrets of the strange and haunting place I live."
Read more poems about Lincolnshire on Poetry Atlas.
Main Location:
Holbeach Marsh, Fens, Lincolnshire
Scene on Holbeach Marsh looking towards the Norfolk Coast
Image by Mat Fascione, licensed under Creative Commons.