Benchmarks

1. Fish Hoek catwalk: 'In Memory of Bill S'

I've been parked by your plaque, Bill, looking out to sea
where once you must have looked as rollers snaked white tresses
up Muizenberg beach, and the southeaster boiled up
the bay. Today a northwester is peeling wavelets back
off white cheek; nimbus curdles the berg top. I wouldn't mind
going here, sailing over the peak as a cloud shadow
while my body sat still on your bench, notebook at the ready,
my passport to posterity. Then, perhaps, I'd see
as you must have seen, where I was going at last.

2. By Dollis Brook: 'In Fond Memory Paddy M'

In midwinter by dark shallows in the park
where I take my new arteries for a Sunday walk
his salute is carved in the seatback. Round here the buggers
prise off plaques, and only aerosols leave testaments
on river wall and derelict wendyhouse. Round here
the wind is hard against the face; you sit with your back
to a Tesco-trolley weir in the muddy stream.
Not a place I'd like to leave my mark; yesterday,
a bit farther on, where the brook slips into the wood
I walked into the past: among lit trees, silent windows
blind with sun, dark roofs cut into infinite blue; a child
descending from mother's call deep into birdsong.
There my memory writes itself, in lattices of
light swaying on water; on whispers in the greenwood.