St. Andrews Harbour
The tide goes up and down against these walls
whose stones, unmortared, have withstood the years
of constant washing. Water rises, falls
with measured regularity, giving the piers
a shifting look. The tangled veil, now dried,
now soaked, of bladderwrack appears
and disappears according to the tide.
Herring-bone sand reveals its presence, then
submerges. Here, where land and sea collide,
one could fall off the edge. The elements
feel stronger here: air, water, earth and fire
distilled by wind as salt and oxygen.
History lurks, buried in sand and mire,
drowned sailors, rib-cage ships, dismembered dreams,
now lost in sea and sand, a world entire
where all is clear but nothing what it seems.
Lyn Moir
Where better to visit on a sunny morning than St Andrews Harbour, as our next stop.
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