SEASCAPE
Once we have climbed the steep track to the cliff top
and seen that the coastal path is narrow
and edgy along the range of jagged cliffs
that stretch and turn for miles, we decide
discretion is the better part of aging
and sit on a new bench provided by
the kindly dead. We can hear the wind
in the gorse, sheep cropping the tussocky grass
at the very edge, and the waves out of sight
on the rocks below swell and fall, swell and fall…
There is a container ship turning slowly
on the horizon; nearer, the white sails
of a dinghy, the shimmering shadows
of a shoal of fish; and, bobbing closer still,
half a dozen lobster pot marker buoys.
Two seal heads appear briefly above the waves.
Suddenly a solitary dolphin
breaks the surface a hundred yards away.
We hear it exhale – its head, fin, back
glistening as it dives… And then a stillness…
almost a holding of breath…
Ashen Venema
July 28, 2022Discretion has its rewards. What a great bench to rest on. I’m sure the dolphin felt your presence, your being there and taking in the beauty of this coastline, its habitat.
Clive Watkins
August 15, 2022I like this, David. There are some excellent turns here. For example, “edgy” is what I would be if I were walking that “narrow” path along such “jagged cliffs (more edges); and certainly, “discretion is the better part of aging”. I like the ironic conjunction between the new bench and its kindly donors, the dead. I like the sweep of the poem out from the bench deep into the view and then back again. The “shimmering shadows” of the fish is a good observation, and pleasingly paradoxical. At the end it seems that the dolphin may not be the only creature holding its breath.
John Huddart
August 22, 2022That dolphin had spied a fish supper!