Where the airbase
overlaps the bay
on a sand path
I sometimes sit and paint

and the manned machines far off
cut new rights of way
through the cow parsnips in clouds
and the salt grass
sways in time
with distant capillary waves,
few and faint.

I remember the line about
nothing better suited to wind
than pines
but what’s ancient Greek
for an onshore breeze
that whispers in the sedges?

The last of the darting swallows
eats up the soft descending night
and even gnats need sleep,
aloft a moment
in a current
and the next
gone entirely from sight.