Essence of Long Beach

Summertime escape for the world,
Sandcastle landlord, braider of sea weed,
Builder of friendships and creator of memories;
Salty, accepting, uncontainable,
Plymouth's own Long Beach:

They tell me you are forgotten and I believe them, for I have walked your desolate beaches in the watchful company of the gulls and the shells.
They tell me you are lonely, and I understand them, for the scent of sunblock has long faded into memory.
They tell me you are inhospitable and I cannot contradict them, for with each step forward my footsteps are wiped clean behind me.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who abandon this my playground, and I hand them back their unfaithfulness and say to them:
Come and show me another beach with faithful tide pulsing, guided by the moon and protected by the stars,
so complete in its' long-awaited freedom.
Roaring in the measured nights and laughing in the crisp days,
Coming into its' own, a peaceful giant, amid the seaweed and the sand and the cold.

Wild as a sandstorm consuming itself in whirls,
Beautiful as any man or beast ever created,
Dancing,
Singing,
Leaping,
Rising,
Creating, destroying, recreating,
Through the frost, sand cupped in his hands, laughing with polished jaws wide open.
Under the terrible abandonment of fair-weather fans surviving as a true fighter would,
Surviving even as one who has been deserted season after season,
Giggling and surviving for through his great heart hums the pulse of the secrets, and in his hard-packed sand lies the memories of the world and the men and the creatures,
Surviving.
Surviving through the rain, and the wind, and the snow of
the world, laughing, roaring, free, happy to be
Summertime escape for the world,
Sandcastle landlord, braider of sea weed,
Builder of friendships and creator of memories.