Walking to The Ocean

for Stroudies everywhere

Let’s take a walk to The Ocean shall we it’s merely a matter

of three miles away though you won’t see the sea

or find an horizon breathe in ozone

taste the briny spray hear breakers crash

the grating pebbles’ withdrawing roar no painted ship idles

on our unpainted ocean no peg-leg pirate plots a mutinous fate

no ghostly parrot prates pieces of eight! pieces of eight! there’s no keel-hauling

no walking the plank no sinking ships

no deserting rats no doomed Titanic no icebergs no rocks and reefs no mermaids, no sirens

no whales, no dolphins no jaws with shark’s teeth

no flotsam and jetsam no dross

no shot albatross there’s no Victorian pier no seaside attractions with roller coasters no pink-skinned children with sunburnt shoulders no candyfloss no kiss-me-quick hats

no buckets and spades no sandcastles

no bathing belle contests, no bikinis no Mr Whippys no Punch and Judys no shrimping nets no deckchair tickets

no beach cricket yet how we love our tiny ocean

with no lighthouse and lifeboat station no swell, no tide

no perpetual motion for we know full well

it’s a lake by mistake a mere mill pond which laps against

The Stroudwater Canal as benignly as the sheep who safely graze nearby where Ocean Bridge*

links landlubbers’ towpath to Life on The Main

and seagulls do swim with swans and ducks, moorhens and coots who scoot across their watery domain

oblivious of flood and tsunami so let’s take a walk

to The Ocean shall we let’s dance a hornpipe, sing a shanty too

for as fine a crew as ever set sail and winged back to harbour

to tell us their tale

* The OS map of 1882 shows ‘The Ocean’