Guardians of Sea and Air

Kent, England, September 2016
I was staying in a friend's caravan, almost in sight of the entrance to the Channel Tunnel. At night there was a distant background noise like faint and faraway traffic. The nights were clear, and the constellations visible overhead between the trees became as familiar as household gods.

 
Returning home at sunset; entrance to the Channel Tunnel on the left



Guardians of sea and air
  
The night portals never rest,
the orange lights and the entrances and exits
to the underground, tunnelling beneath the sea,
the same sea we saw today, from cliff-tops,
a turquoise stretch of water, then a haze
of pale blue, no clear line of the horizon.






The night's work,
the guardians of sea crossings,
the tunnel underneath la Manche,
they never rest.

Night lights of planes
weave in and out of stars
altering the constellations.

In the afternoon, the hot sun
on the cliff-tops, white and chalky,
where the edges crumble, rusty signs
warn of danger, but there's the trodden path ahead,
there's the memorial to air battles
fought in World War Two 





the statue of Pilot Everyman
gazing out across the sea
and the valley railway line to Dover
and the sea birds above the blue.



 

Comments

Vagabonde said…
Your words go so well with your pictures. I like those white cliffs. I also looked back at your pictures taken in France. It makes me homesick in a way. Now that my husband has Alzheimer I don’t know when I’ll be able to fly back home. It has been 2 years already since I went to Paris and it is too long. Your photos around Montségur were also quite beautiful. I have not visited the Languedoc region and wish I could. I understand there are many British people living there now. I wonder if because of Brexit many of them will have to go back home?
dritanje said…
I hope dear Vagabonde that you will be able to go back to Paris soon. I often feel mal du pays for France though it is not my homeland, and frequently feel a need to go there. As for the Brits who live there now, and there are many, no one really knows but there have always been people who live in other countries and I suppose EU countries will bring back a kind of carte de sejour for foreigners, which will have to be renewed from time to time, which means you have to have good relations with the maire! Or lots of money. It's a tricky state of affairs and looks as though it will be years for the UK to negotiate, with the likely result that life will be economically harder, and travel too...
Beautiful photos....the blues are mesmerising......must have been even more so to witness in person!
Rubyxx
dritanje said…
It was such good weather, sunny and warm and yes, those blue skies! Summer continued there, we were eating outside in the sunshine.
M xx