In cynic recollection, waves are typecast:
they rear up, sprawl, disintegrate
their lacy flounces on the stony masses,
evoking flinty comment and the
muted squeaks of rocky seats
shuffling unconscionably.
So too, the seasons have their froths,
of sleet of blossom, meadow-sweet
of leaves that curl their lines and hurl
themselves frenetically offstage.
But to the historian, what variety inheres
within a rearing season. How early
did blackbirds bill? The pear
flowered in March that year.
What made the summer birds so tame?
How did our grief entwine among the
raspberries?
Better for some of us to lose ourselves in detail -
for often to the older, horizons harden,
jawlines tighten ornery/stoic
bitter resignation coupling with delusion
that age occupies the high-ground -
when at that summit Wyrd reveals
the Tarpeian rock for traitorous mortality.
Let me keep my journal of the little things
in search of time gone by, or catalogue
the very strewage of the seas about a keel,
the wake awake, and through the luminescence
of our troublesome and nurturing dreams,
search edges for the golden samphire seeds
in cracks of rocks
that 'beetle o'er their brows'.
