On Pagham Beach.

Have you noticed how events that seem not to be connected often seem as though they ought to be?

I am sitting on a wooden bench seat
on a pebble beach, face towards the sea
in a high wind, beside a boulder carved
from worthy motives to a shape that fails
to lift my spirits, make that famous surge
of pure adrenalin. It sits there, squat,
sufficient in its heft, its small brass plate
a telling of the fact that off this beach
the well-known harbour - Mulberry - was born.*
A few weeks. Fifty sections, each of some
six thousand tons. I've often wondered how
the German spotter planes could miss so much.
The plaque explains: the builders sank each piece
as it was finished. One would not refloat.
It lies there, visible at each low tide.

A young man pushes a twin buggy round
from six O'clock, almost collapses on
the far end of the seat. Falls forward, head
resting on the handle of the buggy.
Fast asleep - while tucked inside, two twin boys,
identical, are also sound asleep.

From 4 O'clock two more young men. Also
in charge of twins. Two more identical.
The men themselves the same. Three pairs in all,
so something in the world's great scheme of things,
its hidden depths, is working its self out!
The new (child) twins are older boys. Lower
infants, I would guess. They carry buckets
full of bits: short lengths of wood, match boxes,
twigs and paper cups, boat shapes and plastic
items which they take down to the sea to float
them there. On each occasion though, the large 
waves sink or swamp them and they pick them from 
the water run up to the rock, climb on,
and lay their treasues in the sun - to dry!
The high wind promptly blows them off. They weight
them then with pebbles or with sand and try
to fit them to each other. Like maybe
they are jig-saw bits. I fantasize now.
Are they building their own Mulberry... but 
no, it doesn't work. End! cries one. They sweep
the boulder clean and run back to the men.

The man beside me rises, walks away to 9 O'clock.
The other two - at that exact same moment -
turn, depart the way they'd come, but stooping.
Flicking pebbles. The pebbles fail to skim.
The waves must always have the final word.

* Here