My son's first glimpse of the sea at Southbourne

The Sea

A little boy chugs down a zig-zag slope,
obliquely nearing sea, and sand, and shells;
crosses the promenade. His sister's yells
fade out, time stops. Eyes open, mouth agape -
half raised arms half reaching out. Stock still.
Movement, thought, suspended: he drinks the sight
of sand, three shades of yellow, sun-washed, bright
as stone; of waves which roar and hiss. Until
his busy sister bustles past, intent
on sand-castles and shells. He gains the shore,
the spell washed out. But does a trace remain
in his, as in his father's mind? A stone
half-buried, half-remembered, to transmute
his future pains with tinge of golden awe?

Copyright Jay Whittaker

completed 6.6.2000 (though the experience was several years earlier)