The bees are busy, harvesting amongst the sea-purslaine

Despite being too heavy to fly, they drone,

Resisting force that pulls them back to earth,

Moving like monks on a mission, disciplined in work

A waggle-dance ensuring no omission:

 

Taking pollen again and again, drowsy and rotund,

Perhaps they sense that time may be short;

The quatrefoil flowers opening, their advent calendar

To autumn, the days of falling apples, in long grass,

Leaking their sugar back into the earth.

 

There may be time yet: the Sound is quiet today,

And flat; sand in the dunes runs hot through fingers

As in an hour-glass left outside, and under clear sky we may yet

See showers Perseid meteors tonight,

Their course tracked by Sir Isaac’s calculus.

 

Twice a day, the moon’s gravity over comes my levity,

Drags the waves up the shingle, shedding seaweed and driftwood

And knocking over any sandcastles

Built by us puny humans. Time passes, imperceptibly;

Sun sets, moon rises: moon sets, sun rises,

 

And the gulls wheel and cry a new day

Unendingly, unerringly, and suddenly announced

From the brash trumpets of their upturned beaks;

Waking us, and calling bees to their moist cloisters,

Their daily hours of work and prayer.

 

No doubt Sir Isaac would say, here on this shore,

Were he not diverted by these pebbles,

Or standing on the shoulders of a giant,

That anyone who fails to be impressed

Can’t grasp the gravity of the situation.