This is the place where life comes to leave.
No sand for sunbathers. Unless they be
washed up remains of trees, twice dead
bones of the earth, parched and stark
in dreadful sunlight.
Unless they be shags watching the fresh river
rush out to the breakers — new threads in the
blanket of water drawing itself onto the sand toes
of the beach — their wings wide open in youthful
apathy as the breeze, breath of the sea, dances
through their damp feathers and rustles
the Toetoe, angel hair, whale teeth, filtering
whispered stories from the ocean.
Was it my great grandmother?*
who one morning felt the tide
of her life coming in to go out,
and took a walk to the shore,
stepping softly in sea-foam and salt
death, her stiffening body wrapped
in a watery pall, then left, arms splayed,
to dry off in the sun.
A swift cure for old age.
*It was actually my great great great-grandmother, Rosina Dixon, who died of exposure on the shores of Foxton Beach. She’s buried in Bunnythorpe cemetery.
Deborah Faith Thompson