Return To The Beach

Canutes cannot untie the tide
or hide the wrinkled brow of ridges;
the varicosed veins of bladderwrack
or the lost playground of distant gulls.

Canutes cannot untie the tide
or ban the band or can can dancers,
the napping shoreline, suckling foam,
or the kids who give souls to old shells.

Sea walls will always shudder and fall
and souls wade into the naked sea
but as death ebbs so rebirth will flow
and the tide return all our footprints.