As you walk north, the Atlantic on your left
muttering, stretching out its wrinkled skin,
your eyes half-closed against the oystery light
of the open world, you might sit down
on the sharp reluctant grass, a dry white dune,
and lean back, with your fingers in the sand.
I did, and found the empty shell of a whelk,
and then another, and soon so many shells
I realised I was sitting on the midden
of a family who had lived here once,
in some much earlier season. Now I wonder
why they collected all their shells together...
These summer people thought to save their feet
from sharp revenge of molluscs they had eaten?
Were they competing with some other gourmets?
Or was it tidiness, to heap
their smelly calcium downwind on the beach?
If so, the village should be over there.
One of them thought that shells might come in useful
some day: necklaces; counters in a game;
a bank of money of the northern kind;
the makings of a shelter, full of light,
to keep us safe, as dry as we could be
in this wet world, open to air and sea.
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