After A Storm

After a Storm

Delicate lattice of Marram roots made visible,
Waved politely by breeze.

Sculpted cliff – sheerly standing,
Where soft sliding sand dune – echoed to children’s games.

An ocean now pitched up in long piles of foam, a new world.
A different horizon; grey mounded sea, merged into leaden sky.

How I hoped to walk the wide sand with you.
Thrill to the sanderlings clockwork parade.

But where can they live now?
Their gentle shore is no more, a shock to my learning.

Power beyond constraining – they knew all along;
We remain only brief visitors for a season – Then we are gone.