We were delighted to receive this poem from Pat Walsh having attended our open day back in February. Thanks so much Pat. Some things have stayed the same - others are most definitely different!
Revisiting The Cliffs at Shoreham
By Pat Walsh
Lots had changed.
Men grey with age
sat and gazed where young men
once ran and played.
Bunk-bed bush huts
were now comfy windowed cabins
with double beds
that looked on while Teresa of Avila
was quoted to the crowd.
Steps cut in the cliff
to quicken Salmon runs
down to the waiting sea
had gone, too dangerous now.
The entrance sign proudly
chiselled in varnished pine
had rotted off its hooks.
And all that was left
of the ant-bed tennis court
was the centre line that
told in from mainly out.
But still the swimming pool sea
sings in chorus with the trees.
Honeysuckle Beach is mulled
by the sun’s ardour.
Prayers rise like bubbles of air
exhaled from deep below.
Ants dig where grasshoppers
played ball in the sun.
And the reading of books,
then a measure of manhood,
again held our devotion
backs turned to the ocean.