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.