Reclaiming
This runt-scrap of land.
This pith of earth.
Half-soil,
half-salt,
all howling sky.
For now this silt's still ours.
A concrete sea wall;
impervious,
half-toil,
half-hope.
Already dissolved
in the future's slewing surge.
Today the light is fragile blue, foreground a smear of sea.
Brent geese flying in
from what remains of the Arctic.
Where do we go from here?
Born in Birmingham, Richard Williams grew up in Frome and has lived in Portsmouth for the last thirty years. He has had poems published in a range of magazines, including Acumen, Envoi, Frogmore Press, Orbis and South. His first collection, Landings, was published by Dempsey & Windle in 2018.