Deborah Bowkis

East Anglian Sea Driven Changes Through Recent Ages

Exhibit: Deben Estuary 2020.

Tumbled trees shrouded in sand,
rising seas sieved the soil
through their exposed roots.
They cannot stand.

Exhibit: Lynn Minster and Tide Clock 2030.

The dragon’s tongue licks salt
from the face of time as the sea laps
the Minster’s towers; old tide
marks swallowed by brine.

Exhibit: The Last Salt Marsh Norfolk 2040.

Marshland seen from platform - born 10,000 years B.C.
now entombed. 
Compare today’s close horizon line
to another time, thirty years
and a mile distant. 

Exhibit: Cambridge Spires Rise from Sea 2050.

Punts, crawling with crabs, tethered
in college courts. This silent seat
of learning, its spires mired in salty sediment,
is flooded with ancient memories.
(Drone tours available).

Catalogued from the Earth Collection: 2060.

Gravity(as)

The glue between galaxies,
keeps us spinning round the sun
sinks all roots into the soil 
makes all rivers run.

The black hole at our centre
is drawing out the light,
it’s the greatest force in nature
not our belief we’re right. 

Deborah lives in Suffolk and works as an academic. She has started to write poetry more seriously in the last two years and has learned so much from other poets. She writes about people and the world of nature as these are the things that seem to matter most. She has had some work published in anthologies and in regional art/writing initiatives. 

Flights, Issue Six, September 2022