I SAUNTER down Beach Road

Then view the magical sea

Placid this morning in mid-October

Yet soon the seawall will be blasted

By huge autumn waves but not today

As the sun breaks through stratus clouds

Which crack in the sky like Arctic sea-ice

I feel as though sitting in Paradise

Watching a boat drift past the pier

Channel dazzling my eyes

With ripples of silver in a cool breeze.

Waves softly explode against the pebbles

As a pensioner sits on a wooden pier seat

Immersed in a newspaper.

A woman and toddler are on the shore

And there’s nobody yet in the sweet store.

I drink an Americano outside the Pavilion cafe

Then stroll to the end of the fabulous pier

Glad to escape to the sea for a while

With the patient fishermen lost in thoughts.

It’s a place to recharge your soul

As I let the sun caress my brow.

My ghostly shadow is following me

I seem to float above the morning sea.

Guy Fletcher

Pantmawr

Cardiff