This is no trick of the light.
The headlands are being carried away
stone by rock by stone. Neither wind
nor rain nor day nor night can deter
these gulls; watch them soar
and plummet, pick clean
the coastlines' bones. It’s work
and it’s a game, their winged insistence
their raucous reclamation.
Urgent the bedrock, patient
the firmament. A line is waiting
to be drawn; we are only
and always a story
in the making.
and always a story
in the making.
This is no trick of the light.
The headlands are being carried away
stone by rock by stone.
CB
(detail from) Waters I Have Known - Oil on paper 2010
For more Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill.
This week's editor is Emma McLeary with Kiss by Rachel Bush.
I love the idea of the gulls picking the bones of the coastline clean. Great illustrations too.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Janis - but particularly - "this is no trick of the light"! really caught my eye.
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued. Thanks for this poem and the photo. It's a powerful reminder of when as a small child my mother read me The legends of Ulysses. I would expect him to be popping through the cliffs in his ship. How did you get so close...it looks very dicey!
ReplyDeleteHI Janis - and thanks.
ReplyDeleteAJP - Alicia - light. . . As my grandmother would say, 'tis a 'saucy', tricky thing.
Hi Helen - whilst in Spain I sat on the edge high cliff opposite what many consider to be the Island of the Sirens. I half-expected Ulysses to appear there, too, lashed to the mast of his sailing boat.
The pic of the headlands is poor quality because we weren't anywhere like that close! (I zoomed in, zoomed in and again zoomed in!). It behoves us to show great respect for the sea which sometimes means keeping our distance!
I love this Claire - just beautiful.
ReplyDeleteClaire, lovely to have you back - and oh! to hear your voice on the phone yesterday - the adventurer returned. Yes, like Helen McK I immediately felt the cliffs of mythology in this fabulous poem - the drama of it - the storyness - delicious language too most especially read aloud ... those gulls ah me....!
ReplyDeletewatch them soar
and plummet, pick clean
the coastlines' bones. It’s work
and it’s a game, their winged insistence
their raucous reclamation.
I think this happens to our bodies some days. Words, events, hours seem to pick up the rocks, sometimes lay them heavier on ourselves.
ReplyDeleteBut isn't the sea just like our bodies anyway?
xo
Ah yes, this is the way of the world, is it not?
ReplyDeleteThe poem itself is spare and "picked clean".
Thank-you, Claire.
The photo and painting do carry the sea's power of myth. "This is no trick of the light" but do we always trust our senses, our knowing? So much to consider here, a constant with your posts. "We are only and always a story in the making." xo
ReplyDeleteI love the way your words carry us away, much like the sea and the gulls.. thank you for taking us with you on your travels!
ReplyDelete