RETURNING TO ROCK, NORTH CORNWALL... (My poem about returning to Rock in 2008, a boyhood destination, Cornwall...)

 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…