Changing Shores - ASP - Association of Sustainability Practitioners

These narrative poems by Sarah Hymas will accompany you on your journey along Crosby Beach.

They capture changes in coastal processes, land use, shoreline management and observation techniques.

Read the poems, listen to the author (click the map symbols or open the tabs below), and view the ‌ photo gallery.

Times are when wind can break a gull’s wing
bomb out channels and surge water the height of a bus.

I repeat, stampede on the remains of war, a torn city
dropped from a great height,

sift through the kitchen sinks, marble fireplaces
to find remnants of where I might belong

in a land that erodes as fast as my fumbling.
I am the storm that turns battering inward

when homes are lost, hurl bricks and plume sea
skyward, to remember I am here, with you, always,

in some force that could stroke a cheek or rip your ear.
Listen. I am here. My utterances fall quiet and distant

the further inland you leave me. But I am somewhere
if not with you. A radar sometimes sweeping the beach

monitoring my tracks, my stealth, my glinting eye.
I am fire in the water, see, here, and here, sparks

waiting to ignite, like the sun each dawn,
juggling starlings on the Irish Sea

playing skip on the steps at every spring tide
and gotcha with the coastguard shutters

on a suggestion of my tower-high wave spray.
I bide my time, flying wet-tongued and dry.