Collage

The sea rolls in.
Wave crests white as pva
layer sand and gravel
across the wide-sky beach.
The day becomes a collage:

a landscape of
shells and bladderwrack,
forts and castles,
ankle-twisting hollows;

a soundscape of
sea-roar and wind-moan,
dog-bark and child-laugh,
kite-rip and gull-shriek;

flavours of cinder-toffee
and spun sugar;
the smell of crab,
of chips served in newsprint;
the salt drying on our skin
as we walk home.

Later only fragments remain,
torn slivers of days rearranged,
ink-washed and pasted.
Memories of childhood, 
images faded
as old photographs.