SANDCASTLES

on the beach
in pembrokeshire
at barafundle bay
as the sun finally disperses the stubborn clouds
an interesting metaphor occurs to me
hannah and daddy-oh are building a sandcastle
or to be more precise
daddy is building a sandcastle
while hannah potters around in her swimsuit
mixing sand and seawater in a bucket
and referring to it by some weird name she made up
that i can't recall
'daddy, do you want some (sheed)?'
anyway
daddy is slaving away trying to build this thing
an impregnable mound
surrounded by a fortified moat
with a small bridge
crossing a long curvy channel
that leads out towards the sea
what hannah doesn't know
as she watches n potters
is that daddy is making it up as he goes along
starting with a rough idea
and a raw material
and constrained by the limits of that material
adding to it
shaping it
developing the idea
into something beautiful but functional
daddy comes up against a few problems of course
he finds that the sand he has used is too dry
so the mound keeps collapsing
he must replenish the water evaporated by the sun
one of his tools breaks
and he has to refashion it
but in a way the most interesting bit is the scraping
scraping the bottom of the moat to add depth and level it
because no matter how much sand he removes
a bit always falls back in
and no matter how hard he tries
he can never get it quite level
so he has to compromise his perfectionist tendencies
and make do with the messy moat
of course his feeble canute-like attempts at permanence
are destined to ultimate failure
for the tide will eventually overwhelm his little edifice
just as the castles we saw at carreg cennan and drysfywn
were eventually breached
and now lie in ruins...
a couple of days later
at broadhaven beach
hannah and i try again
this time we have more elaborate and ambitious plans
creating a long anaconada-like channel
which squirms down to a pool by the shore
but for all the bowing and scraping
our efforts to mould the environment
to tame the awesome power of the sea
are destined only to be washed away