Cambois Beach

 

He walks ten yards ahead,

Orbiting at a safe distance; 

Ash coloured gravel pings 

Under our boots on cliff top path. 

My little boy, scoring

Lines in sand with scraps of driftwood -   

He runs, bare feet skim

Beige expanse of flat as he speeds.

Steeply inclined walkway

Leading down to the beach is scuffed

With traipsed up, dried out sand;

Salt blackened waste pipe protruding -

Giant fossilised spine

Swagged with damply dripping seaweed.

Socks and shoes spread out, dry

On man-made sugar cube shaped rocks

Piled, bracing the sea wall. 

I watch my son scramble up them,

Gaping, lurking between, 

Cracks snap at his little ankles.

I beg him to come down

But he smiles and reaches the top,

To be frightened instead

By a dozy, hovering wasp.

Crusty between his toes, 

I scrub his feet with a giggling

Sandpaper sensation.

Side-winder ridges line the shore,

Piped with ebony lines;

Stones, deliciously oval, smooth

 As cannellini beans

Varnished, shining with seawater.

Vehicle stops nearby

And my child rushes towards the

Open door of Dad’s car.

Forgotten, I turn to collect

Day out debris – damp clothes,

Empty packets, some beachcombed shells.

Biting wind on cheeks, as

I sit on cold stone wall and view

Rough patches of grass where

Coloured ponies forage the scrub,

Amid cracking concrete  

And buckling, saggy wire fences.

The slow dereliction   

Of unused buildings; the roughness,

The uncompromising

Wildness of Northumbrian coast

Fits like a worn old glove,

Soothes my stooped and shapeless body.

Weather burned prison hulk;

A barnacle studded outcrop  

Buffeted, eroding,

Discarded, absorbed into the

Bleakness of the landscape.

I am a grey, diminishing  

Sunset sea horizon;

Vanishing crack of light between

Dormant waves and falling night sky.