"Native land" is something I keep leaving.
St Mary´s Lighthouse, and the cooling-towers
at Blyth, shrink, vanish, last visible proof
that a land mass exists, grand foundations
and small private sites. Our course is North-East.

This time we leave we´re followed three hours out
by a deep inland warmth, the kind that takes
all day to ripen bounded by flagstone
path and cottage wall both centuries old,
while nasturtium tendrils waver past an edge.