Tide Poem by Les Brighton

Spring, like a wave, catches one unawares, spray-shocks.
Fluorescent-lit offices have no seasons. Townsfolk do not mark the tides.
They keep their time, still. Buried in bedrock the ring laser registers
The gentle tug and easing deep in the roots of the hills.

And here it comes, bubbling and trickling steadily over the mudflats;
Wave driving wave further on up onto the beach.
Daffodils pop and splash, salty in the rock-pools.
The windy spume of the cherries is blown through with sunlight.

Camellias foam down the backslope, lilac pumps out ozone.
Azaleas cry like gulls, swooping low over the wave-crests.
Resistless, the current. Canute stands determined, hands up, palms out
As driving steadily towards him come the deepening rhododendrons.

The day is over. Log out, lock up, step outside.
The deck rocks and bucks, the new leaves gather and surge
The lungs fill as with a driving sou’wester.
We are riding the tide over the bar, into the open sea.

[Ring laser: In a cavern underneath Christchurch’s Port Hills is an optical instrument so sensitive that it registers the shifting weight upon the ancient bedrock of the rise and fall of the tides.
Canute: English king who, according to legend, was encouraged by flattering courtiers to use his royal powers to stop the tide coming in.]