- Vol. 09
- Chapter 03
CLIFFS OF DOVER
When I was young,
my folks forbade me
to look at them
as they chipped away
and rubbed their mysteries
against the surface of a lime earth
before falling like sawdust
into the open blue.
I saw them fall like stardust,
the powder shimmer-like
and blowing in my direction.
I was delusional
because such an exquisite view
was always a smokescreen.
It's what they had me believe.
They were cynics
and I put up a brave front
with my Romanticism.
CLIFFS OF DOVER
When I was twelve,
they dared me to climb up
and shout out my first name
under the night sky.
I was giddy with the prospect
of peering downwards
before striding atop
to address the sea
with a monologue or two,
an extempore speech
or a little dance of my own.
All they really worried about
was the day I would plunge,
headlong,
into those unfathomable depths,
chipping away and rubbing my own
mysteries against this lime earth,
gulping the open sea,
to swallow all of the Godlessness
in this world.
CLIFFS OF DOVER
****
The fog of fantasy has lifted now
in my thirtieth year
and the creatures I made friends with,
underwater,
are more than figments.
They chip away with their garbs,
out of my thawing daydreams,
and rub their quirks and idiosyncrasies
against this naked skin.
It is quite an exposure.
***
My folks are gone
and childhood's playtime
is in the past.
All I have now is them for company.
They let me beckon this exquisite view,
with time chipping away
and rubbing itself
against the weight of these words.
And I plunge headlong with them.