Books are often inspirations for my poems, and this one is lightly based on Joan G. Robinson's wonderful children's book "When Marnie was there".
Republished as a Collins Modern Classic, this is a magical book, set on the Norfolk coast, and so evocative of times and place, and the world seen through the eyes of a small orphan girl, coming to terms with her past, and a more distant past. The Times Literary Supplement called it "The most striking novel in its genre since Tom's Midnight Garden".
The End of the Story
The sandpipers cry “Pity me, pity me”
Little grey brown birds across the sands
Sand castles washed away by the sea
Mourning lost past, the shadow lands
The beggar girl upon a distant shore
Selling sea lavender, coming to stay
At that great house, opening the door
When Marnie was there, across the bay
Nothing is ever truly lost, and a place
Where sky and water merge into one
We will meet once more, face to face
The greater journey to be begun
The windmill is turning in the breeze
And I hear its whisper in the trees
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