How Long is the Coast of Britain?

It could be a year ago
and I am treading on stones
weedcapped and bedded in sand,
water oozing between my toes
as I look up to trace
my children running, shouting
but shrunk almost to points
on the shining flats, drawing a line
in front of the restless cold blaze
of a far-out tide. Nothing has changed;
at that distance they seem no larger
and though they are still running
no distance seems covered. As the gull flies
we're not so far from New Brighton
where I did the same thing at the same age,
if I had an age. The memory
...