What the Sea Gathers

What the Sea Gathers

An essay on collecting from the foreshore; what the tide shapes and forms, what is noticed and what is kept.

I walk slowly, scanning the edge.






Colour catches first.
Anything other than ash or slate. 
A flash of salmon pink. 
The shine of ochre.

Then comes texture. 
Stones marked by the sea, 
Marked with rings, dots, smudges. 
Never the same.

It’s noticing — The feather in a sandcastle.
A rock that recalls a brushstroke.
The cracked surface of a shell.

A snowy cuttlefish bone.
Rope the colour of rust.
Intertwined with holdfasts.
Driftwood, smooth like suede.






I Go Down To The Shore


I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall—

what should I do? And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

Excuse me, I have work to do.


― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings

A beachcomber, was once more than a wandering collector.
It was a name for sailors, castaways and drifters.
Washed ashore, combing the tideline for salvage.
Searching for value in the flotsam and jetsam.

Now the act is a gentle pastime.
Objects precious not because of worth.
Some to be kept, to be held or to tell stories.
Fragments of the sea, becoming fragments of ourselves.

Stones like painter’s palettes.
Seaglass — mahogany, verdant and lapis.
An adderstone, a talisman for protection.
An urchin, alien and gnarly.


All from the tide’s rhythmic breath.

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