TO THE EATERS OF COCKLES
Enjoy, dig in, swallow them down,
fine seafood, tasty morsels
fresh salty produce
of our beautiful bay.

Wash your delicacy down,
with some Chilean white
sit back, relax, and learn a thing or two
about cockles.

Soft bodied animals, hard external shell,
the cockle, with its long and powerful foot,
ploughs its way through the sand
leaving a furrow afterwards.

Off-white to light-yellow,
ribbed grooves inside of the shell
extend only a short way.
Cockles are not grown but picked
from the salt marsh mud.

Now perhaps you're imagining
Cheery men in thick woollens and wellies
Skills handed down through the ages.
If only that were true.

Have another slug of your Chilean white,
and learn a thing or two about cockles.

Women and men in their hundreds
Spread across the bay, exposed,
far from the shore where no local
would dare to tread
kids, immigrants, desperate, exploited

driven to the treacherous mud
in wind and rain and dark,
gang leaders, slave drivers,
tractors, flat bed trucks.
Worth a million these little shellfish
but hardly a penny to the pickers.

Don't stop, enjoy, tuck in,
have another slug of white,
but learn a thing or two about cockles.

Despite the dangers of ice and cold,
the cockle can survive in frozen sand for over a month
but the gang who had travelled
god knows how, from the other side of the world
didn't stand a chance in our beautiful bay.

Nineteen,
sorry, didn't you catch that?
Let me say it again.
Nineteen.
Brothers, mothers, sisters,
dads, lovers, the babies of mothers,
lost in the icy February tide.
We love the bay, the people round here,
It's ever changing colours and moods,
the sand, the mud, the sea, the smell.
But it will be difficult now to sit on favourite beach,
and look across to Lakeland fell,
without feeling the presence
of the nineteen.

Nineteen
Whose only experience of our beautiful bay
was to be abandoned to the quicksand,
howling winter gale, roaring,
ripping tide, for the sake of these tiny shellfish
that could hardly make a meal

So sit back, relax, take another slug
of your Chilean white,
and learn a thing or two about cockles

WINTER GARDENS
Swept in from the prom
at lag end of an icy day
sea, all churn and froth.
Lured through the towering facade
by the twinkling glow of fairy lights.
A rarely open door

Quieted ornate tumbledown place,
hushed expanse of green deco tiles,
rubble, dust, glittering beauty,
glows proud through red white tape,
builders tools, and a warning.

Glorious expanse
high vaulted ceiling, circle, boxes,
every inch a cherub or a nymph
straining from the woodwork
blossoming cheeks
scenes of tumbling pleasure
played out again and again.

Not noticing at first, that the high pure tone
that lifted and reached around
each corner and nook of the of the carved
wood and dusty piles;
doesn't come from tape or CD,
but a boy on the stage at the far end.
father beside, cheap electric keyboard.

coats against the cold
surrounded by more fairy lights,
Santa, plastic flashing snowman,
papier mache Indian brave.
choosing hymns and carols from files
of sheet music and books
smiling, yes, lets do that one next

strange and magical to stumble
on this sleeping place.
while the boy in the glow of the lights
fills air with his careful craft
down by the stage, amongst the cold and dust
five of us stand, entranced

surreal and intimate
gathering of strangers,
all wandered in.
connected by the boys high voice
and mystery in the empty
seat less arena, glowing Santa
rubble and cherubs
we can see our breath

for a moment, as the boy and his father
seek the music for the next hymn
I drift away, lost in imaginings of
this place, new and proud.
excited throng through
walnut revolving doors, gloved hands
on polished brass fittings
cardboard tickets clipped

Sunday best suits and dresses into
velvet covered seats, while all around,
in the glittering light and eager hubbub
freshly painted gilded cherubs
dance gleefully on, revelling
in their moment of glory
before the curtain rises

but I would not swap vibrant newness,
the uniformed attendants and plush.
for this exact moment, as the boy on the stage,
his hand quietly mimicking each note,
fills the space again, a stream of high silver.
And the five strangers, surrounded by
the sound, the dust, the cherubs, the cold
and the flashing snowman

© Donald Reed 2003. if you would like to publish this story in another medium or elsewhere on the web