Apflod*

* Anglo-Saxon word for low tide.

What impressed our ancestors about the rocky coast?
Those wet rocks, barnacled and slick with weed?
The immense power of waves that boast
as they crash onto the shore, pounding scree
from cliffs to sand?

And here I stand, watching gulls circle above;
below, the colours of the wild sea are mixed
as if a child has used up all their paints. I love
the heaving brine, the ebb and flow, unfixed,
forever moving,

Nature’s salty sculptor of elemental art,
from tender of tide pools, of ocean creatures
from nautilus to octopus and shark,
to destroyer, tearing cliffs and shores apart,
inhaling only at low tide.

Kim M. Russell, 12th March 2026

Rocky shoreline with seaweed and ocean waves by Zeynep, Pexels

This week at the dVerse Poets Pub, Sanaa is hosting Open Link Night on Thursday and Open Link Live on Saturday, where we can either link up a poem of our choice or a poem inspired by the host’s mini prompt.

Sanaa would like us to take inspiration from the opening line from Edna St Vincent Millay’s poem ‘Low tide’: “These wet rocks where the tide has been, barnacled white and weeded brown.”

29 thoughts on “Apflod*”

  1. What battering outbreath full breadth of the seven seas! I “love” how mauled and carved the shores of Britannia. Better thee than me in Florida — a sneeze and we’re done. Lots of tidal majesty here.

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  2. This is absolutely stunning, Kim! Wow! I especially admire; “the colours of the wild sea are mixed as if a child has used up all their paints.” ❤️❤️

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  3. I enjoyed this beautiful nod to a peaceful low tide, with “Nature’s salty sculptor of elemental art, from tender of tide pools” and the contrast you create with the strength of those crashing waves. This gave me a smile… “the colours of the wild sea are mixed as if a child has used up all their paints”. Lovely, Kim!

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  6. Kim,

    As a person who grew up on the Oregon Coast, this poem speaks to me of the Pacific’s power to change the land.

    I especially like these lines, “the colours of the wild sea are mixed
    as if a child has used up all their paints.”

    Power and beauty that is ever changing.

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  11. You sum up my own thoughts when I am at that liminal interface between land and sea, Kim – “The immense power of waves that boast
    as they crash onto the shore, pounding scree
    from cliffs to sand?”

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  12. A beautiful and lyrical capture of the power of the ocean and tides. I love the opening question, and then the observer’s viewpoint.

    “And here I stand, watching gulls circle above;
    below, the colours of the wild sea are mixed
    as if a child has used up all their paints.”

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