Step onto its glistening sand
and hear the squeaky sound.
Then find the granite boulders,
big and red and round.
What a beach to visit,
listen to it talk,
simply take your shoes offand take a little walk.
The bottle looked lost as it lay on the sand.
Perhaps it had fallen from somebody’s hand.
It seemed to be empty, but still had its lid
Whoever had dropped it must know that they did.
Or had it been lost from the deck of a boat,
With air trapped inside having helped it to float,
Until borne by the waves and washed up by the tide
It was left on the beach at the end of its ride?
Still, no one had claimed it. The bottle was mine!
It looked to have once held some cider or wine.
I bent down and grasped it, then held it up high
To check if inside it was thoroughly dry.
I found it not empty as first I had thought,
But rather, inside was a note of some sort!
I opened and read what was written within:
“Please take this old bottle and throw in the bin.”
Monty says: While working on this poem for the bottle prompt a second poem using a different approach to the same prompt was conceived.
Certainly not. You’re more likely to drown
if you swim under skies that are murky and brown.
And what’s that fence here for? Who cares if it’s green.
I’m more concerned with its ungainly lean
and its reason for being here. Something’s not right.
It belongs somewhere else (and would look better white) –
which prompts me to wonder just where it has been.
Did it come in a storm? What’s it all mean?
Blue bottles on beaches don’t appeal either,
glass ones or stinging ones. I insist neither
of these little dangers should ever be seen
on a beach where I swim; I’m a stickler for “clean”.
And one other thing: there’s no one else here;
I like to know that a life-guard is near.
That settles the matter. I wouldn’t go in.
I’d choose somewhere else for my holiday swim.
But if you’re inspired by your re-arranged mess
the outcome, I’d say, is anyone’s guess.
We went for a walk,
just Nan, Pop and me,
and found lots of treasure
washed up by the sea.
Nan found a rock crab
alone on the sand.
It tickled and wriggled
around in my hand.
I found a treasure
beneath the sea grass;
a smooth-as-silk
wave-polished piece of green glass.
But Pop said his treasure
was the best you would see:
he crawled under the jetty
and there he found me!
Australian Children’s Poetry 