The Beach Ball

THE BEACH BALL

A mother and father are to be seen on the beach
With them is a small boy with an inflatable ball
When he loosens his grasp the wind takes hold
It rolls the ball and with gathering speed hurls it seaward

Now the father is seen scurrying in chase
The ball rests in pools but as the father nears
a gust blows it on again over the rocks
The father can only follow after its flight

Gulls and guillemots and baby terns flee their sea- wracked rocks
as a panting dodging figure dances forward
The ball now wave-borne is floating slowly shoreward
Surely it will catch the sandbank of the shelving beach
to fall at last into the father's reaching arms

But the wind has the winning over the waves
Relinquishing the struggle the father returns
to console his son now playing with his mother
having already forgotten the bright beach ball

And when the wind in the morning has abated
Will the ball be found on some more southerly shore
to delight another child playing on the tideline
- a bright bouncing bonus to his holiday ?

Or will the wind have changed to anger the sea
and smashed the ball in the pounding of some crumbling cliff
its remnants joining the deathbed of a thousand shellfish
picked at by the early morning gulls.

© Gerald England

Composed: Bridlington, 2nd September 1979

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1997 NASA (USA)