© Dave McClure

Sea Child

I shall return alone and let the tide,
risen again, embrace you for its own.
You are the boy who numbered clouds as friends,
saw soldiers in the waves, tigers in spray.

Awakened by the sea, you need not sleep
again in one who cloistered you so long,
prisoner to a promise unfulfilled.
Your sad ordeal is over; here is peace.

I am the coat of mail that you put on
to face a harder world at childhood's end.
Colleagues invented me. I called them friends
at your expense, you had to hide away.

Here is a place for you to gaze and play.
See how the sunlight gleams on Greenan sands
where once you left small footprints. Only you
can find their path again. My child, goodbye.

© Dave McClure

The Centrifugal Governor

Balls! with which Stephenson has tamed the steam
and harnessed it to do the work of man,
small as you are, each flywheel, shaft and beam
is subject to your governance, your plan.

Some, in their innocence, were unimpressed.
'A top, a whirligig, a childish gift,
a bagatelle', they said, but little guessed:
the faster you revolve, the more you lift.

And even as you rise, you stem the flow
through cylinder and piston, ease the thrust
on cam and bearing, mollify the show
to dignified decorum, as needs must.

Dave McClure, 2020, set to music by Robert Hanstock

© Dave McClure

There will be time

There will be time to take your hand, one day,
time not to talk, not to know urgency.
There will be walking times, watching the sea,
our faces turned towards the wind-borne spray.
Then there will be no need for us to say
is this forever - ours the certainty
of something understood. The he and she
of half-forgotten stories . . .
We have seen war and death. We have seen fire
and tempest. We have seen disease and pain.
These times have tried us both and may again
crash rude upon our lives. We stand aware,
while through it all our human hearts aspire
to love. We are not blind. We have this power.

Dave McClure, Worcester, 2020

davemcclure.uk

© Dave McClure

Apple Light

The apple light of dawn
wastes time on each dew drop
upon the lawn

as if these foundlings knew
more than their hour of being
has brought them to;

more than a brief dark waiting
for songster heralded rose.
Anticipating

more than an autumn sun
has in its gift, they gleam
as if to run

to steam. Futile, they see
their coming blindness as
rays steepen. We

have no illusions, brook
no watery complaint
beyond a look

of resignation. Oats
for beasts. New Zealand rugs.
Oiled canvas coats.

Dave McClure, Malvern, 2003