Thursday 18 May 2017

ROCK, CORNWALL: ARTWORK BY JULIE ADLARD & A NEW POEM...

SAILING IN THE CAMEL ESTUARY:
ARTWORK BY JULIE ADLARD...
Rock: River Camel Estuary...

It was the silence,
Like I had returned 
From death
To retrace my boyhood steps 
On soft sand and pale dunes;
The undulating bed
Of the River Camel’s estuary
Disguised the channel’s depths...

It was the essence,
Like I had grasped 
From memory
To recover my childhood joy
On drifting sand and marram grass;
The menacing current
Of the eerie shifting waters
Disguised a clever ploy...

It was the absence,
Like I had desired 
From truth
To retrieve my boyhood innocence
On yielding sand and shallow tide;
The unrelenting ebbing
Of the waterway’s languid shuttles
Disguised my mind’s ambivalence...

Pete Ray
May 2017

1963...

DUNES...

LOW TIDE...

LOVE THE DUNES, MAYBE NOT THE WATER HERE...

Visiting Rock, I simply had to leap from the dunes, as I had done when I was a kid…

It never really felt like the seaside there though, due to the estuary and I really didn’t enjoy playing in the water at Rock. 

Mum and Auntie Ivy were restless to get across the River Camel to the shops in Padstow, albeit this was around 1960 but sure enough, Uncle Jack and my father would relent and we would spend frustrating time plodding around the harbour and shops… 


Yet those Atlantic waves awaited nearby at Newquay, Polzeath, or Treyarnon Bay, our other regular haunts… 

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