Forever Lost (Poetry)

The sea takes all in its good time —
it gathers up and makes a store
of things mislaid, unwanted, lost —
left ownerless on some grey shore...

It fingers, weighs — our loss its gain —
it rolls and sorts what sinks or floats
and shows no favour — claims it all —
cheap rings and watches; bodies; boats...

The sea’s great warehouse takes them in —
bones and bonnets, the odd sock —
pockets them in soothing sand
or tucks them neat in shelving rock.

We think them lost — believe they’re gone —
the novel and the sunblock cream;
the bloodstained knife; the nylon rope
all figments now — an old sea-dream...

The waves will keep them for a while
turn their treasure with each tide
trade with currents, barter goods
spread lost possessions far and wide...

Thus flotsam travels round the coast —
the searched-for and the never-missed —
the gold; the tin; the pebbled glass;
the swim-band from a long-drowned wrist...

Discarded oddments tossed spume-high
on some deserted winter beach
where gulls pick through what still remains
until returning waters reach

to repossess them — seaweed-wrapped —
the tiny skull, the fraying cord —
they haunt the tideline ’til they’re snatched
away to join the sea’s lost hoard.

They’re out there somewhere — artefacts —
small jigsaw pieces — clues to crime
scattered with the claws of crabs
eroding in the sea’s good time.