25th- Osmington Mills


My father worked as a fisherman out of Osmington Mills for the Miller family and met the love of his life in the Picnic Inn. This is for him.


The seagull swoops, banks, dives and disappears into a misty haze cast by the sea.
He watches, lids low, the bird a slipping stitch in the fleeting morning,
until its cry fades and memory drifts
He sits where the cliff crumbles, the familiar bay before him,
fisherman’s knot fingers play the old pot rope like prayer beads of salt and hemp.
The wind is a whisper of old skippers' tales,
and in the hush between waves, he counts the catches of time
the ones of renown, the ones that got away,
the one that kissed his cheek in Osmington then danced with him through life.


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