To Iken and back

CAROLINE PRICE

 

Walk along the Alde’s meanders

from the maltings; leave the concert hall behind

and the sculptures and climb to the thin path

along the dyke: in thirty years

nothing has changed – within minutes

the only sounds are the hush of wind in the rushes

and birds crying. The duckboards tread over

your past, its creeks and channels

trailing their debris, a strong familiar odour.

Go past the field where you picnicked

to where, below a stand of trees

the tides have carved that sudden, surprising cove,

a beach hidden from the by-road

where you left the car, dragging the dinghy down

the slope of dark sand: those are the tracks,

still visible, and there a boat still, moored

and shimmering, just out of reach.

The cove is full now, washed with grey

to a perfect scallop, half-submerged.

How important the tides, how delicate

the timing; you have only a couple of hours

to push between withies into the deeper water,

feeling the lurch and uprighting

of the little vessel, hearing the sharp crack

as the sail tautens, fills. Launch yourself

into the river, beyond its troublesome reaches;

forget for a moment how hard the boat is

to manoeuvre, its capsizes, a sister

doubled up laughing as you cousin in a panic

hurls himself upwards and runs

howling along the flattened mast

like a boy running on water…This is the place,

and here the upturned peeling hull

that was here then, and the old lime pit;

walk far enough and you will pass the kiln

burning again, the Anchor risen from waste grass

Serving the sailors and draymen;

the voices you hear now are theirs, or carry

from the salt works or from Iken church,

alone on its spit, gazing clearly

across reeds to the far side of the river –

Walk back to Iken; you have

forgotten nothing, and it is not sad,

the river narrows and widens again

but everyone you loved is still with you.

 

 

‘To Iken and back’ won third prize in the TRYangle Project Poetry Competition 2012.