Island of the Cliffs

Blue-brown where the waves rise

When night has dyed them inky-dark,

And black where the wickedness washes

Its garments and vices,

Tarnished white with avian disarray

And yellow eddies of growth,

He squints from beyond history’s stupor.

Mud-brown if tied up, the bastion grates his benevolent teeth

And looks down upon us; intruders,

As we wallow in his Atlantian moat.

Scarlet gashes tell of old scars,

Where old limbs have fallen away into watery oblivion.

Displayed raw, these old sores hint sturdy wisdom;

And as the sediment is all leaning

In and out,

Age is solidified,

Though crumbling into the void.

One layer is stripped, victim to time’s impatience,

To leave an archway

Deified for its asymmetry—

Regularity may be defied,

For the beautiful eccentricity of science

Was dispensed

Before the centuries.

A family of fissures

Are pulled taut into an alcove,

Which glitters gold with opalescent treasure.

A squadron of mounded rocks guard the coastline:

Pinnacles rigid with expert might,

As brothers trained implicitly to the soldiering profession;

They wear curving kilts, gaudy with magic,

And dark belts slimming any gateway of default.

Crescent bay before the peninsula;

Soft with watercolour reefs of oleaginous seaweed,

Tossed with salt

As salad leaves tossed with garnish.

Two lives hemmed by nature’s circle:

No escape but through the unbridled vegetation

Reigning the cliffsides.

Through the miles and a haze of cloud

Are houses, layer upon layer,

Draped in overcast skies—

Though these cliffs here are seen through sapphire-studded eyelets.

A blur of rain delights in a corner,

Droplets shimmering across distances.

Islets and castles,

Still stately in gradual dissolution,

Are caught between two blazing idols

Of sunlight.

Incredible!

This is all I need.

All I ever wanted or sought.

And it’s right here.