Here, the rock moves imperceptibly,
smooth through the rough ground
of peat and shale and fossils composed.
Wildly hang the crags at the summit,
cracked with age, from the weather wearing down,
a curlew cruising high overhead, wailing
for the coming of another storm,
the second in as many days, and mid-cliff-face,
three hundred feet up, four hundred from the summit
I try not to panic. I am young but have weathered
many a storm, the elements shall not have their way
nor do the strains of aching joints concern me greatly.
It can be done. I will wait for you, should I survive,
at the precipice, carve your image as I make each
movement, and hope that the trust I placed in you
was one of my wiser moves.
Comments
SundaysChild | May 19, 2009 - 16:57
I love your writing.
Silver Spun Sand | May 19, 2009 - 17:40
You have an interesting style which I find more than appealing. Particularly like these lines:-
"Wildly hang the crags at the summit,
cracked with age, from the weather wearing down,
a curlew cruising high overhead, wailing ..."
Tina
tcook | May 20, 2009 - 10:06
I like this but I must admit that it was the very lines that SSS so admired that jarred with me. How can crags hang wildly? Especially at a summit. I've spent many a long year in various mountains and I've never come across a wildly hanging crag on a summit but maybe that's just me.
Silver Spun Sand | May 20, 2009 - 11:00
I guess I interepreted 'wildly' hanging as meaning randomness, and possessing that romantic appeal of uncultivated landscapes. As to whether or not crags 'hang'...it certainly felt that way when I stood at the top of my very first mountain, Ben Lomond at Trig Point:-) A matter of perspective, perhaps.
JamesF | May 20, 2009 - 11:57
Anything is possible in poetry...i actually was more interested in the assonance binding 'wildly hang the crags at the summit. Sound and rhythm are the key for me, in poetry. And next important comes metaphor to illustrate subject, which in this case is a relationship which is quite literally in danger of smashing 'on the rocks'.