Returning To Rock, North Cornwall…
It was the silence,
Like I had returned
From death
To retrace my boyhood steps,
On soft sand and pale dunes
And 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
And 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
And the unrelenting ebbing
Of the waterway’s languid shuttles
Disguised my mind’s ambivalence…
Pete Ray…
(2008 visit…)
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 a frustrating time plodding around the harbour and shops…
Yet those Atlantic waves awaited nearby at Newquay, Polzeath, or Treyarnon Bay, our other regular haunts…
