101 introverts gazing out to sea

There is nothing melancholy about these hundred human forms, widely separated on the beach, alone and together in a sea the colour of clouds and churned sand.

Despite their contemplative calm, the words on a loop in my head are Stevie Smith's: 

Nobody heard him, the dead man, 
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought 
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, 
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always 
(Still the dead one lay moaning) 
I was much too far out all my life 
And not waving but drowning.

Perhaps those would have been the words in my head anyway. Perhaps they are there because I spent this morning at the exhibition at the Tate of photographs by Francesca Woodman. Mostly of herself, evanescent, part-hidden, disappearing as she moves, as if she wasn't sure she had the right to belong.

I came out troubled and, for a reason I couldn't pin down, angry.

It was good to be in Another Place for the afternoon, alone with these still beings, reflecting on what it is to be human in a world of tides and winds and gradual oxidation until we are no more.