HOLIDAY

Cutlass of sea cleanly scythed the pink horizon
No wonder it bled into the blue.
Perhaps it carried the stain of children's hearts
Bleeding freely on their last holiday night.
Perhaps this warm blood entered hearts too young to know
that sand and sea and long, long days
were not the reality their lives were to become
nor ours to remember.

The following morning it ended the red sea
The cold blue steely edge of sky
and cotton-brimming clouds
proclaimed a day so new
that all was forgotten of the pails of sun
that were emptied as castles of gold
onto historic sands.

Grey heads still searched for deck-chairs
in the corner of the sun
Children still chased crabs with their echoing cries.
The future was silent when we said:
"Only a week but a lifetime
of restless waters and drowning days."