Timothy Steele

It's pastoral enough - the flat, slick sand;
The towel draped round the neck, as if a yoke;
The toppling waves; the sunset, as it smoulders
And drains horizonwards, fiery, baroque;
The young girl sitting on her father's shoulders,
Directing his attention here and there,
Her ankles held and her unpointing hand
Contriving a loose pommel of his hair.

Here strollers pass, pant legs rolled up like sleeves,
Shoes hanging over shoulders, laces tied,
While godwits - rapier bills upcurved - peruse
Bubbles beneath which burrowed sand crabs hide.
Though hardly anyone these days conceives
That this is where the known meets the unknown,
The ocean still transmits its cryptic news
By means of a conch's ancient cordless phone.

And night will put an end to pastorals.
A crescent moon will cup its darker sphere.
The waves will crash in foam and flood up through
The forest of the piles below the pier.
Alone, archaically, the sea will brew
Its sundry violence beyond the shore,
Beyond the sweeping beam, where heaving swells
Of kelp-beds wage titanic tugs-of-war.