White the dress upon the white cliffs, blue the colour of memory the sky, purple and bruised the salt sea below. Down the cliffs the waters run, through branch and bramble and creeper clinging, from aeries pendant and reflective, sun and sky and salt sea curved up and inward; free fall to the waters below. Splash and tap amongst the wooden ships. Long and low the ships. Still the air, save where sea spray curls up and backward from cliff-face to bedew the curly beards. Small winds, island winds. No voyage may be made on such winds, though far the gulls fly, and wide echo their screechy cries…

But white the dress. White the face above the dress; dark brows, dark eyes. Eyebrows bunch together in one graceful arch. Rare this beauty, and unserene, like the salt sea below. The wooden ships below upon the salt sea rise and fall like her lashes. Clean the air here upon these white cliffs, bright the sun, green these swelling islands. The clear water sings behind her, salt and undrinkable. It swells from the turning hoofprint. Some sea horse, large as the world, paused and turned here, to look again upon the tossing wavemanes…