Many suns streaked the estuary
as dusk came soft in the silver mud,
scudding past moored boats stilled on a calm ebb,
past Godwit, Plover and Redshank
skipping in the ooze,
past draggled seaweed
and dense woods coming in to leaf.

They fell on three Thames barges,
squat, flat bottomed,
hulled in the mire,
furled flax sails budding ochre,
rooted in the shadow of grey tides.
In their days of sand and brick
these sisters laced each sunset
in a warm spritsail,
slipped from river to river
with slow familiarity.

Looking from the Butt and Oyster
this small bay had the stillness
of long retirement.
Still tethered by grimy rope like a slave,
a wreck splayed its carcass in the silt
as the sisters looked on,
uneasy in the windless backwater.
They seemed to me to long for use
in a sharp Medway squall.

This low tide had no mourners at its funeral
but a coral sky and splintered sun.
A Godwit called in the dusk
and we turned from the window
with a desire to talk.