A queer thing about those waters: there are no
Birds there, or hardly any.
I did not miss them, I do not remember
Missing them, or thinking it uncanny.
The beach so-called was a blinding splinter of limestone,
A quarry outraged by hulls.
We took pleasure in that: the emptiness, the hardness
Of the light, the silence, and the water's stillness.
But this was the setting for one of our murderous scenes.
This hurt, and goes on hurting:
The venomous soft jelly, the undersides.
These lines touch back upon the absence of the area. It also shows us how the writer enjoys the silence and emptiness of the area. I believe that ‘the hardness of the light’ is referring back to the blinding limestone beach. I sense a major shift in mood during this part of the poem. The writer began by reminiscing on the area, now they seem to be focusing in on why they enjoyed the area. 

Across the Bay