It began in Scarborough, on New Year's Eve, beside the sea 
The discarded boot perhaps, of some vagrant giant
Washed up on smaller shores;
Prised us open with ivory prongs 
Finding things we carried with us from afar 
Quite unaware. 
The wonderfully-worn-loved leather jacket 
I lost in Manchester in 1992
When I was not my current self;
An arctic blast; the pink of new-healed wounds;
The moment when you can't go any further, 
Collapse on cold stone; 
Those streets and pavements we have laid on: any port in a storm.
The knowledge of the depths, of distance, waves and weather,
All brought here by the wanderer: 
A slump of stories, a pat of migrant thought, 
Perhaps a wisdom,
Slumbering comfortable just where he'd landed.

And people came, they gathered 
Not just to gawp at foreign wonders
- For he seemed immediately our own -
But to engage, to recognise, to love...
And they cancelled the fireworks, 
Because sometimes the most awe-inspiring eruptions,
The most resounding booms, 
Happen not in the skies but in our hearts 
Or deposited at our feet in ordinary towns. 

And so, while Thor the Walrus slept, 
The change gained energy and pace, 
And our strange new world was glimpsed
On New Year's Eve, beside the sea.

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