This is a poem I wrote roughly 30 years ago, which has recently re-emerged in conversation. Sark is a unique place, the smallest of the four Channel Islands, and on the boat back to Guernsey I tried to write something unique to capture it. Here it is!

Sark, July

Bare island teeth
stumped by sunlight
The sea’s blunt bite
grey-flecked hound with

no anger left.
Mysteries crowd
the hot shadowed
sea-valleys, cliffed

by salt weather
out of old rock
Ochre dusts choke
streets of other

nature, hoof-packed
brown with stale time
Secret ways climb
from the tide-wracked

beaches into
green-hushed conclave
deaf to the waves’
call.  Here trees grow,

careless of years
So the island
counts time in sand
not calendars

Lush woods, dry grass,
silent as feet
pad the soft dirt,
keep their witness

Reckon such groves
within the isle
more than people
And only the waves

crowd this harbour,
pale sea-children
catching the sun
in their laughter