Composed on Musselwick Sands, Saturday 5th May 2023
Still around, Jon is: he’s not gone.
Glimpsed him today as I got down
Onto Musselwick, his favourite bay.
And I thought, same as I always did, Keen sod!
Because, always the first
To be into the sea.
Now you can say that what I saw this day
Was just the sentimental expectation of my eyes,
In which his familiarity is yet to fade:
That’s one possible explanation.
But I would rather think, and hear it agreed by others,
That the memory of some has far more resilience
Than a footprint on a beach:
It refuses to fade, resists the wash of Time’s waves.
It chooses to mature,
Embracing the years with oak-strong resolution –
Like other sorts of warming spirit
Which give our lives such lift.
