Keep The Home Fires Burning

Overtaken by Elegy

Here we are back to long, low lines
of saltmarsh creek, sandflats and dunes,
the wide, collusive Norfolk skies above,

from the vantage of a hardcore bank
beige at its flanks with bleached-dry mustard stalks,
dog-leg shocking bone-white streaks of oat-grass.

All our talk of Robin-Williams films -
vivid cinematography leaps up

along the board-walk which rollercoasters
up and over dunes, marram-haired glee-free,
undulates with bush-lined hollows, "Choo-choo!"
Matt-red multitudes, rarely one ripe black....

and how uniquely, hairy, manly humour,
insistent on sentiment,  tender with friendliness,
the cock-a-doodle-doo of Pan, King of The Moon,
wistful child, or broken-hearted-lover,
slit-eyed cynical conspiracist, scaring no-one
always a manic jest quest, one foot up-to-the-knee
(indelible paint of sad realities),
the other waving cheeky triumph - in-zone
dance on one leg...       
                                How much given to so many
by this single-handed apotheosis
of the quirky-chirpy, eccentric-quizzical
rooted in mortality and smiling up,
dangerous cloud-busting in the buff?

Here on a beach by a salt-bleached base
of fallen tree: "Captain, my Captain.
I salute thee."

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