Faded Gold

There were beautiful pebbles on this beach once, decorating glowing sand with glints and winks of blue, green and shining quartz.

Over the years such stones have grown fewer and fewer; displaced by industrial concrete, brick, rust.

Black sand in great striations.

Scars on faded gold.

Then there is the plastic—a bottle, a bag, falsely reflecting the weakling sun. Offering the brief hope of a gemstone. Promising instead a disgusting memory lasting centuries.

Lethal fishing nets, with remnants of glitter, ripped off in struggle.

An old, off-white buoy stands sentinel. Rope looped loosely onto a groyne. Useless.

Seaweed, decaying. Cloth, ambiguously stained. Bucket and spade, cracked and discarded. Air, cloying…

But there are footprints still, paw prints too. Someone occasionally ventures onto the wasteland to stretch their old bones and reminisce about a childhood brimming with beach days.

The prints are shallow. Hard, damp, unforgiving.

At least the dog’s leavings are fresh.