Hastings AM

We sit easy in a sun drenched cafe,
the morning sea off Hastings
sparkling like a million reasons for joy.

Egg on toast our basic fare,
still a source of amusement
for the rough fishermen throwing cards

and jibes in their accents, burred.
You just know these are tough, cunning men,
playing hard now, their work done

before we even blinked in our bed.
They shout something after us
and we smile and nod in return

while removing to cobbled streets,
and then towards the blinding beach,
passing sheds of weathered wood

that are speaking of the sea,
that they might fall in the next storm,
their fate as flotsam along the crashing coast.

But once on the beach we forget it all,
simply to follow the pointing children
and their joyful cries of ‘Dolphin! Dolphin!’

© copyright dfbarker 2012

*First published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’ in 2011, available for purchase here: http://liten.be//gHmf9

**illustration from old original, digitally enhanced, © copyright dfbarker 2012