On Newcastle Beach

On Newcastle Beach

The light was sharp, so sharp each wave’s wavelets which, cresting

before the lilac foam, threw their own shadow, an odd thing but once noticed

was realised to be everywhere; the coarse sinews of sea grasses on the bank

bowed to their individual casts, and probably, if we’d crouched low enough,

the very single grains of sand would have their cubic dark, elongated

and slightly to one side.  Rocks were hefted there, rolled smooth and pronounced

magical as dinosaur eggs, but not as magical as the frog found dead above the tideline.

This frog was perfectly yellowish green and splayed, exposed and belly up,

its expression in death unseen; the bulging eyes and rigid gape could only be assumed

to be unchanged by death. It was a strange freshwater anomaly on that shore,

an intruder more bizarre than any washed up bones or worn fragments

of cheap crockery.  We left it there unturned, uncouth and other, let the gulls feast

on its sad remains, we departed, sliding back against the wind, along the bright and rustling strand.