DUNES AT SUNSET... (My new poem inspired by Michelle Underwood's artwork...)

 Dunes At Sunset…

(Inspired by Michelle Underwood’s artwork…)

The sky’s dull creams cloud into light greys, fusing

Into yellows, bloody amber and patches of white

Which stretch like a yawn above the shadowy dunes,

Spiky with marram grass, tousled with hardy flora

And silhouetted with grasses floundering in the sunset…

On the River Camel’s estuary at Rock, as a lad I climbed the dunes, using

Them for leaping onto the sand below from quite a height,  

Near Padstow’s famed Doom Bar, which still looms 

Large at low tide, its humpbacked, hazardous aura

Now a haven for egrets and herons with long bills for a threat…

Pete Ray…

5th December 2025…

The sun setting over dunes in the painting reminded me of unsettling days at Rock, as a boy.

I didn’t like it there really, because it wasn’t actually the ‘seaside’ as such to me and the beach wasn’t really a beach, it was essentially a river bank.

However, my mum and Aunt Ivy liked it there, as they were able to scour the shops and harbour in Padstow during the late afternoon, after we had taken a ferry across the estuary, or driven there via Wadebridge.

I didn’t like shopping that much, either…

Happy days…