I’m on holiday with my family in Seaton, Devon. Today we sat on the beach and looked at the sea. I threw some pebbles. This evening, I wrote the poem that follows.

Above the curve of the horizon,
a blue sky with Simpsons clouds

Below,
a desert of water

No boats,
a few buoys, cactus-like

There can’t be anything beneath that granite mirage

Steep pebble beach, figures,
alone,
frozen in attitudes of quiet spectatorship,
eyes directed at the shifting thing
we confidently label: “the sea”

A thin arm repeating a gesture,
hailing or cursing the sea

A pebble over the water,
falling
again,
again

A further element to the scene:
a seagull,
a prop
held in place
by an invisible wire
or wing and wind
who can tell?

Sounds too, looped:
cries of seagulls, distant voices,
the rasping of water sucked back over shingle
the bark of a dog

Again, that gesture,
aggrieved, excited, condemning, celebrating

and a pebble falling

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