ROCK, NORTH CORNWALL, 1963 & 2008: A POEM...

Rock, in North Cornwall…

1963

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

2008