I won’t go into the day save to say it was grim as an overcast sky, hungover and car sick. But now, on a beach polished golden by late afternoon light, two cold beers – my companions, refreshment beading bottle-green glass and glugged so thirstily, the whole of reality is changed, altered.

The wind moves constant through the pines, and unseen birds twitter: Vibrating needles hum a single eternal note.

The tide is in, lapping gently in the push of cool waters. Oystercatchers shrill low over the glistening brine, every wavelet capturing the blinding sun.

Moored sailboats jostle anonymous, swayed by tide, current and breeze, their lanyards chink, chink, chinking, tolling a finger-tapping rhythm, a morse code of freshness.

The wind moves constant through the pines, and unseen birds twitter: Vibrating needles hum a single eternal note.

The sun is on my back like a hug from behind. I look up, and the beach is near deserted. My companions are spent and silent, drunk.

The sunbathers have packed up, leaving but a memory’s shape pressed in the sand. Only a lone young woman remains, sitting on the wall, reading. There is a deep silence inside her, a peace made of the ever-flowing wind.

The wind moves constant through the pines, and unseen birds twitter: Vibrating needles hum a single eternal note.

Behind the woman is the row of trees from which the birds twitter. Their trunk-bodies are sculpted by the air; their faces swept clean; their hair creaking; their needles vibrating with the sound of reality.

I can taste the world, the whole world, brought by the wind and the twittering birds, constant in the fronds of the trees, creaking gently.

The wind moves constant through the pines, and unseen birds twitter: Vibrating needles hum a single eternal note.

I can feel the world, the whole world, called by the wind and the bird’s constant twittering, and the oystercatchers cutting the sunlight from the waves, and the chink, chink chinking of lanyards drumming on aluminium masts.

I know the world, the whole world, found in my broadening heart’s cool waters and the sun’s hug from behind. I know the loving world contained in the constance of silence as the wind moves through the pines and unseen birds twitter; Vibrating needles humming a single eternal note.