Standing on the shore
Facing, for the first time,
The uninterrupted horizon
Of the wide Atlantic Ocean.
Watching the tide recede,
Listening to the gravelly rattle
That I would later recognise
as the rhythm of mortality,
Whilst arced far above
the emerging stars
Receded far faster,
If they still existed.
It was a twilight time
Of endings, without, as yet,
Any clear beginnings;
A summer, but no longer
The Polaroid coloured
Sunshiny summers
Of childhood memory
(that never were).
Rain stopped play,
At least on the beach.
A cold wind blew
And one foray into the sea
Sucked the marrow
From my bones.
The Canute-like confidence
Of youth and faith
was beginning to ebb
Though many more twilights
Would follow before
An acceptance of
My place and powers.
Now I prefer to be
A watcher on the shore.
I am content in my smallness,
My ultimate incomprehension,
My effective impotence,
My place in the present
On the edge of a stellar spiral
Too often obscured by streetlights,
Spotlights and twinkly
Christmas lights.
Many, many years later
Mid night in majestic mountains
Many miles from that Atlantic shore
I again gaze on our hazy galactic home,
hear in memory that receding tide,
And recognise that I will only ever
Perceive pieces of patterns,
Catch fragments of stories,
Or be able to focus
for a fraction of a second on
one small corner of a vast landscape.
And I am content.
I am comfortable with complexity,
Knowing there is much more
That I will never see
Much less master.
I am discomfited by
The monocularity of the martyr,
The panaceas of the programme purveyors
The fanaticism of the fundamentalist
Religious or secular,
With their grand theories
Or theologies of everything,
Wielding their reductionist razors
Eviscerating mystery
Disemboweling wonder
Squeezing God into something
Small enough to be sold
As an antidote to uncertainty.
In this period
Of necessary limitations
I travel in memory
To that far shore
To listen to the receding tide
See those stars
And enjoy being able
To do nothing
But observe.
Selah
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