Bright sky, and the instruments

Mean nothing to me, what's rising

Or falling this morning

Is the glittering wave

On which the bold vessel rides.

Green waves, dancing water,

The play of light over

A filling tide: celebrate

Timeless, the shining moment.

My eyes flood with light,

I gulp the air, salt and sunshine.

The whisper in the West

Is something the seagulls know:

They take the soft route inland,

Their wild cassandra-cries

Foretelling this same sea's surface,

Flung in corregations as tall

As the suddenly uncertain trees.

Bright sky: a fool for sufaces

Watch me take to the water,

Wilfully launching

My brigantine heart.

Stella Davis,

Southampton

Our poet-in-residence Polly Clark says: Stella Davies spent the Year of the Artist as Poet in Residence at the Port of Southampton. The resulting poems collected in her book Watershot, explore, celebrate and interpret what she found there. Watershot is avaliable from Wanda Publications, 75 High Street, Wimbourne, Dorset, £5. ISBN 0904939715