East of Zero

Clint Wastling

East gets less each year. The curse of stupidity,
like Cnut forbidding high tide.

We protect vital assets and leave softer land south
to its fate in the grey North Sea.

East Riding — it marks final landfall
before the Greenwich meridian touches The North Pole.

Long-shore drift erodes Easington, Kilnsea,
ground to sediment deposited at Spurn.

Earth is scooped away by the Holderness Ord,
a wyrm of water uncoiling, twisting, making land sea again.

Zero is imagined — a construct for longitude.
In one hundred years nothing will lie east of here

and our house, twelve miles from the coast,
will become littoral.

The Science

Climate change is responsible for a wide range of global events, from weather patterns to rising sea levels. This poem deals with the reality of coastal erosion of the East Riding of Yorkshire. It and how  protecting one piece of coast adversely affects other areas through increased land loss.

The Poet

Clint Wastling’s  poetry has been published widely, including Orbis, Dream Catcher and Marble. Clint has a collection – Layers published by Maytree Press. His novel, The Geology of Desire, is an LGBTQ thriller set around Whitby in the 1980’s and Hull during World War II. He also has a sci-fi novel: Tyrants Rex set 3000 years in the future, both published by Stairwell Books.

Next poem: First Rank Chicken by Kay Keenan