Making Marks

I step barefoot on the sand, 
make my mark
lazily in the sun by the edge of the sea.
Leave a footprint
under a cloudless Cornish sky.
Taste salt on my lips, breathe its scent on the waves. 
Sun kisses my face, the back of my neck.
And seabirds glide and ride the air 
crying their songs.

Twenty-five years ago, I remember 
planting my feet on another shoreline.
Feeling the water run 
between my toes,
walking on hotter sand
beside the Mediterranean Sea.

I can still hear
the laughter of children, 
the squeals of delight
as they splashed in the shallows. 
I can see them run carefree,
sailing their kites,
a fluttering of colour 
in an ocean of sky.

I remember too, 
the school I visited:
smiling faces, 
eager to learn,
sharing food
beneath olive trees. 
Air scented with 
jasmine and thyme. 
So much hope,
So many dreams…
Just children making marks, 
marks in the making.

Poets and artists, 
doctors and teachers, 
engineers and farmers,
dancers and music makers, 
shepherds and bakers, 
researchers and scientists, 
architects and builders …

Where are the marks 
those children made?
Where lie the marks their children are making?
Where lie the marks 
their ancestors made 
down the millennia?

Where are the temples, the churches, the mosques, 
the mosaics, ancient texts, the museums that hold 
the ancient pots from the 15th century BC?
Where are they now?

And what of the land? 
Where are the oranges 
olives and sheep?

Where is that school? 
And the children, 
now they have grown,
where have they gone? 

I can only see rubble.

The marks are all buried, 
erased by the bombs.
And the sands by the sea 
are stained with the tents 
of the fearful displaced.
And their cries fill the skies… 
And the world just looks on.



Nicola Tipton