This summer has been especially hot and ideal for walks on the beach. Over the years since we moved to Galloway, many such walks have led to poetry. An earlier version of this poem was posted in one of the shop windows in Gatehouse during the Big Lit festival.
Hunting Words and Pictures
Shingle crunches beneath our feet,
gigantic helpings of crispy noodles
dried seaweed lies in desiccated heaps.
There’s side salad of sea spinach, or
if you prefer, scurvy grass. Both tossed
alongside the helpings of lasagne-like kelp.
You crouch hunting for images
to compose a good photo, while I search
for words, scribble notes to recall the scene.
The evening tide gently swishes in,
a tiny bird’s solo fills the air until swamped
by a rock dove’s persistent curr, coo, coo.
The beach is empty, but a single line of foot-prints –
man Friday with boots – tells of another, somewhere.
Life's a Beach 