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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Jewels of the beach</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Plash…keesh… plash…keesh</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">the waves throw themselves<br>onto the pebbly beach, <br>but as if they regret their own angry generosity, <br>pull back a sieved undertow of finer pebbles<br>mixed with rogh toe-grating sand; <br>their generosity the swathe of larger pebbles<br>which gleam like jewels, before the salt-water<br>dries them into centuries of scratched, scoured surface, <br>dull as familiarity.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">That swathe of jewels – magic to a child; <br>but now I’m older, yields a mental miracle<br>of nature ceaselessly at work: </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">green bottle-glass pebble – rounded to a smooth, safe shape<br>for the child to spot and pick up –<br>that’s easy to trace: from fishermen’s magic globes, the net-floats, <br>or bottles thrown carelessly overboard<br>on some romantic cruise..</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">white chalk – that’s easy too: final shape<br>whose roundness may resist at last the restless sea<br>chewing away at Dover’s so emotive cliffs; <br>just the right size for a tiny fist<br>to write on concrete; it could write but scratch<br>that slate or blackboard with its ABC.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">a gorgeous mottled red: as if from pillar<br>of some exotic Eastern temple; a closer look<br>suggests some mighty compression of the earth<br>that’s left a substance just about halfway<br>between soft Devon clay and harder granite; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">and here a softer red; shaped from some brick<br>the sea has stolen from some poor defence; <br>but that will write too, stir a first artistic effort<br>setting off the white; but leave a trace of itself<br>on that small, tight fist; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">now the shades of green – the hardest stone, <br>serpentine, which glows when wet or waxed: <br>how long did this stone take<br>to shape – and then to roll on ocean floor<br>from distant shore and ancient mountain range? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">a whole range of semi-transparent yellow-browns, <br>agate and suchlike, best when wet; their structure<br>easily breaks down, too small for fun; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">but here’s a slatey grey, veined with white, as if<br>some modern sculptor had seen its possible potential, <br>smoothed it with a loving hand; nature, <br>says the aesthete, meeting art..</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">the occasional alabaster sparkler just survives; <br>so dull now, that you’ll need to smash it first; <br>but here’s the pride of all this sea-tossed mile of treasure trove: <br>a ravishing, smooth, moon-white marble, maiden aristocrat; <br>how long, how far, to roll and sieve this<br>like some ageless prospector sieving for gold or diamond? <br>what Greek palace tipped by an earthquake<br>into a blue Aegean sea? Into the crummy pocket of the shorts<br>that one goes, to line up with its kinsfolk<br>on the window-sill..</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460125" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">a sea-shore (you can hear it in the word itself..) , <br>a beach, a child with blowing hair and eager eyes; <br>these two spell happiness; live nature’s most compatible.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a></strong></div>