All Paths

All Paths

All paths lead me here:

Where endless horizons

Meet tracks so well-trodden,

And questions abound ...

To ebb or to flow?

To wave or to drown?

To sink or to swim?

Dilemmas unfaced.

All paths lead me here: 

Where walking books bring me,

A holey-souled pilgrim

All sea breeze-slapped face

And saline-spray tears.

Futures less certain

Than those which have passed

Wash out on the tide.

All paths lead me here:

Where storm-weathered bridge 

Meets saltwater dreams,

Beach-pebbled nightmares,

White horseback escapes,

Deep contemplation,

Fleet-footed endings

And fresh-faced new starts.

All paths lead me here.

All paths lead me here.

This poem of mine recently won the Watford Writers' Poetry Competition. We were invited to submit poems that were inspired by an image. The image inspiring the poem was one I took between Worthing and the Sea Lane Cafe at Goring-by-Sea, although the poem could have been written on any beach, anywhere.

I grew up in an industrial town where the nearest 'seaside' was Southport where, on a good day, you could walk a mile out on the beach and still not be actually able to see the sea. Perhaps the draw of the coast instead from the mariners and shipbuilders of my mum's ancestry. 

Image and text copyright John Hartley 2025