The Sound

by Howard Wright

Watched all the way across, closer, the ferry comes in
Hard and fast, top speed, nose lifting as it touches base.
It believes in traffic and takes it to heart,
The coach and pristine 4X4s heard but not seen.

We reverse, once the gangplank has been hauled aboard
And stowed, turn on half a sixpence,

And swing out past ghost islands looming to port –
The wasted years – while we as we are today – content,
Looking no further than this –
Retrace the wake, the swooning crags and clouds,

The white grains of huddled houses, a new world
Reminiscent, unrefutable; the family

At the stern photographing the dissolving thread,
The Yorkshire tour up front, head first, zoom lenses
Speeding their arrival
Over the Sound of Sleat in the hurry of their lives.