Sea Iris

Weed, moss-weed, root tangled in sand, sea-iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken, and you print a shadow like a thin twig. Fortunate one, scented and stinging, rigid myrrh-bud, camphor-flower, sweet and salt--you are wind in our nostrils. Do the murex-fishers drench you as they pass? Do your roots drag up colour from the sand? Have they slipped gold under you-- rivets of gold? Band of iris-flowers above the waves, you are painted blue, painted like a fresh prow stained among the salt weeds.