Herd Sands
Here on the shoreline estuary,
river mouth sands
Where plastic waste is sucked in and spewed out
twice daily
by a tide that has had its fill of humankind,
Where the herring gull and brown rat vie for detritus
jettisoned sternward from trawler boats
homeward bound
Hailing stations from a glorious past reach seaward
with broken fingers claw at cormorants
perched black as death’s veil waiting.
Rocks where the drunken fisherman
curse luck or current regulations;
Grenadiers launching empty bottles of sorrow
at scurrying rock rats.
An industrial beach now on the mend
reveals its scars from past violations
Rotted rusting iron bolts in concrete pylons
blead dirty brown over speckled stone
Sea coal fragments ground granules huddle
like blight on golden sand in proud defiance
of an age when coal was king.
Flotsam and jetsam from the city up river
Deposits itself like an unwanted relative at Christmas
In your favourite armchair
It is here you find sea glass hidden on the high tide mark.
Muted colours of clear, green, brown, and blue
sitting amongst the discarded ephemera of life,
waiting till the watery waves lovingly kiss their children
Made from a union of sand and sea
Then they sing in a chroma like a mezzo soprano
under the gentle caress of the baritone wave.
Nature sticking two fingers up in defiance
at the current negligent tenants of its glorious land.