Boxed fields, drawn square,
packed with barley, wheat, and pasture
patch the landscape like an old family quilt
in block shades of green, yellow, and brown.
The seams of hedgerow and metal fence
running between, holding them tight together.
Tidy, organised, as it should.

A restless shoreline lies below, rolling in, rolling out,
eating up the width of beach in froth and foam
and then retreating back, exposing sand and stone,
slowly shelling aged boulders to rocks,
thinning those to pocket pebbles, to ovals, discs,
skinny, round, and slim, for us to pick
and throw and skim along the surface.
Working, active, never ending.