Friday 6 May 2022

MOUSEHOLE MAY CALM, SHRIEKING GULLS & THE SHEILA-T...

 Mousehole May Calm, Shrieking Gulls & The Sheila-T…



A bench. 

May sunshine. Lunch unpacked.

Mousehole’s warm, low-tide harbour sheltered

Small vessels, most of them leaning,

Tethered by ropes or rusting chain.

A quayside at ease with its inner beauty revealed…


A calm. 

Spring sunshine. Nothing lacked.

Mousehole harbour, where life’s traumas faltered.

Raucous gulls, several screaming

An occasional thieving disdain,

Scoured the quayside for scraps which appealed…


A boat. 

Noon sunshine. On stilts stacked.

Mousehole’s cradling walled womb, unaltered

Moored the Sheila-T, stout and preening

Against robust ropes taking the strain,

Balancing on wet sand, yet proudly even keeled… 




Pete Ray

5th May 2022




Seeing Mousehole was feeling its calm. 


EVEN THIS SWALLOW LOOKED CALM...

Strange experience, certainly.


Boats lay askance as the tide slipped from the harbour but the gulls kept up an occasionally noisy hunt for food.


A black-backed gull stealthily snatched a bag containing a cake from next to a woman nearby, then bounced away carrying it like a dog carries a stick and only flew with it when the victim gave chase…


The Sheila-T was slightly incongruous in the harbour, for it was larger than Mousehole’s usual fleet of registered boats…



It balanced on two wooden vertical stilts, one on each side of the hull…  




  

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