Poetry for People, Dragons & Other Unusual Creatures by Mel West The Prometheid (1972) Part VIII Impressions of Cambria Ice plant clinging to sea wrought cliffs, Tiny buttercups tucked midst sea born drifts; And winding foot paths framing the living prints Lead the wayfarers to a wandering bliss, Silent, yet deafened by an eternal tidal mist Which surfs day and night, pounding moments into events.   Cypress trees cling to the traveling soil, Leaning away from the surf's mighty toil, And midst rocky fingers of land's treeless end Stand an occasional form woven from two, Two lovers clinging as love is want to do, Rooted in the calm of the beach's gentle bend. Painting by Mel Copeland, early 60's A weathered eye surveys the action-less scene, Waiting to spy movement midst the patched green; A screeching gull warns the ebbing flow, As he swoops upon his foamy cape, But nothing moves to change the casual shape, Which invites the basking seals on the volcanic rocks below.   Sun-browned kelp mounds sweep the restless sand As scalloped currents caress the land, Mixing the wash from cove to cove; Yet, quietly, quietly, crystal grains ebb and seep, Counting the time where the tiniest creep By trailings anew, of large and small treasure trove. A moment is stopped as the watchful lie Before a stone black, curious, lidless eye; Two lovers kneel in a curious gaze At nervous antennae probing from the moonstone holes. A click of the shutter sends tiny claws to deeper shoals, Away and into the womb of the foamy haze. A shoe on the beach, a sail coasting afar, Two more in embrace before their car; All watching the watchers and tide's afternoon, Waiting for sunset and its hallowed reddish sky; Emerald flows meeting lapis deeps, Until the retreating light levels graying keeps, Silently guarding the blue-red dye.   Painting by Mel Copeland, 1974 The two still entwined on lands end, head shouldered to head, Souls yet moved by raptures anew, a glowing bed, Stand as vigils before the dusky shore, Waiting forever until the sands below Mark the moment of a new orb's evening glow, In the haunting stillness, repeating the eve before. He removes her hand from a youthful waist, And leads her down the walk in haste To catch the vantage of a moonlit sky Casting its light over the breaker's last points. He grips her hand and her tears he anoints By his tender lips on cheeks preparing to cry.  "This is Cambria," Eli whispered to his dear, "Cry not my love lest others hear," He wiped the tears off her cheek, one by one, Gathering to his finger dew, as dew upon leaves; "This is Cambria, which no one, having seen it, leaves: The truth that all yearn, a rest in peace, my Cambrian son."   finis   Please beam me back up to Maravot's_Index.html Please send me over to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People.html Please send me to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People4.html Please send me to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People2.html Please send me back to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People3.html Please send me back to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People3.2.html Please send me back to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People3.3.html Please send me back to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People3.4.html Please send me back to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People3.5.html Please send me back to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People3.6.html Please send me back to Maravot's_Poetry_for_People3.7.html Please send me over to Maravot's_Romance_of_Anais.html Launched 10.25.97; Updated 5.27.2000; 3.17.05; 5.29.14 Copyright © 1997-2014 Maravot. All rights reserved. Copyright © 1997-2014 Mel Copeland. All rights reserved.