Winspit, Dorset

Wild Swimming off Winspit

We walk past London Row –

The stone cottages have dark rooms, dusted with secrets

Low ceilings and uneven flag stoned floors –

Old stories fly up cold chimneys

Secrets gather under the stairs

Rich townies take the cottages now for weekends in the summer

TV execs from London, with bright Range Rovers for the country

Buying pints with twenty pound notes in The Square and Compass

In the snug, there’s a chair made out of driftwood –

A wizard’s throne, bleached by the sea, scorched by salt –

It sits next to the fire, roaring on the stones in winter

On the mantelpiece above, there’s a photograph of a bearded man –

Knowing and old, his face looks through the glass –

Landlord when the place was a rough cider house

Taken up by some members of the Bloomsbury Set

There are photographs of them, too –

Clever and half smiling, posturing under a darkening sky

You can glimpse the sea through the windows of the snug

A triangle of steely blue through the small panes

A deep valley runs down to the cliffs and caves –

Lynchets are marked by shadow,

Brave bones lie under the turf –

Sea Kale grows in cracks in the stone

A sailing ship bound for India went down on the rocks –

The villagers climbed down ropes to heave one or two men to safety

They found single shoes the next day, at the foot of the cliff –

The drowned were floating amongst the swaying kelp

Thick green ribbons wrapped around their legs

Blue eyes open in the gentle swell

We swam here once –

Sliding over the bright seaweed, we slipped into the electric sea

Our heads bobbing like apples between the rocks

Our feet bushed by sea anemones and dancing fish

We were shamed into swimming by a man in his seventies –

He stripped off and jumped in without a second of hesitation,

His tough knotted body, moving through the waves

He shouted to us as we swam together –

“I love wild swimming –

The last time I swam, it was in a pool at the foot of the Matterhorn” –

What could we say to such splendid words?

He ignored the dark swimmer who will one day hold him

That beautiful shadow in the water could wait until its time –

So could mine – I turned away from it –

Now I would enjoy every moment gifted me

Turn seconds into days

There could be no hanging back now,

Not after this wild swimming off Winspit

January 2012