Point Break

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In winter they tell me, with the frontal crashing in
and sidelong gliding out, of the two faced circling sea,
those sand escarpments form. The ones you can balance on,
rocking gently, like a buddah laughing at a human joke.

Hands in dreamy pockets - huddled in
against a south coast mock-winter puff of wind.

Rocking, heel on toe, to an unfathomable point break.
Working the firm packed sand til the toy rampart falls,
cracking in two like a piece of shared cake
in the hands of an unknowing god; slumping to a new state.

Suddenly you are no longer able to stand: you lie
toppled amongst moist crumbled sand.
The once steady platform irredeemably moved,
like a civilisation under the weight of sudden truths.

Like an emperor unclothed at the turn of a people's mood,
or when tragedy renders a paradigm moot.
Powdery towers blooming in heartfelt freefall -
like the pinnacle of particle science, finding nothing at all.

Holiday time swaddles the mild catastrophe -
muffling the snap between moment and memory.
Obscuring the turning point that made the difference
between maybe and never, or rumour and proof.

Burying the tumbling and crumbling of dreams,
masking the spectacle of cascading memes.

Standing on sandcastles, mesmerised by the pull of the shore,
lulled by the white noise foamy roar. Like any civilian -
radio waves washing over them in the traffic of the day,
crashing commercial ploys and political plays

that seem to reassure, and to keep change at bay.