Beaches: A poem 

Dawn crackles into the fisher-folk’s ware 

of nets, rough wooden boats, the chain 

of humanity drawing into the wells of mother ocean 

creeping with mastery into her bounty. 

The tide drives up the spray straight 

into tourists’ faces. They delight at the freshness 

of salt inklets jetting out of the foamy blue tide 

then drying up like sap on a smooth sal bark. 

On the waterfront, the thin strip of lathery soap 

froths the boundary between sand and sea 

But like armies of changing fortunes, 

these are washed away with every wavy foray. 

It’s morning, the birds follow their patterns across the shore 

The hungry tide brings its heavy merchandise of shells, 

dead catfish, stingray grounded like little spaceships 

from their galactic flights, mackerel gasping-jumping like 

darting silver flames to feed their gills on suffocating air, 

hairy buttons with their sticky gels clotting on the sand, 

sardines with their brown backs sucking out the last drops 

of life, pomfrets still from sand filling their silken saucer mouths, 

pearly starfish their tentacles holding out against the ravages 

of man and sea. All these trapped in the shell upon my ear… 

It’s time I dreamt about the scents of the planet 

It’s easier to pick up the stars from the floor of the earth