If the soul of my dead father remembers anything
he will remember the rake of these rock pools, the lean
of their stacked lines, he will note limpets and shrimps
and know this umbrella mist as it falls lightly as drizzle.
If he remembers anything he will hear the clipped whisper
of the waves on the turn, here where he used to swim
far out as if - I wonder now - it was his only solitude.
I suppose a soul from this place will hear gulls squeaking
and have no argument with far-sighted oblique storms.
'High tides are expected', a woman said to me today,
my father's soul will want to be here, in the spray
and in the gale, in the storm's uncompromising rage.
I.M. Albert Hart