Twelve months on, defining clumsy, my father will say,
That’s where you fell.
I’ll remember it more than anything else that happened
that Easter. More than the chocolate and freshly baked
buns. More than the sounds of his voice waking me
in a thick film of sweat.
A rock exposed by the tide,
like a blackened egg decorated with moss. A danger
unseen, I’d put my foot on it, minutes after my father
had put his rod down, to help my mother untangle
her line. And what occurs to me now when he says,
you fell hard,
is that he was scared. And it stops my breath. It was a
morning incapable of cold. I never once thought of the rocks
pulling me into darkness and doing it now, I’m back there
staring at my wading boots, wondering
the placement of them.
There are things I forget, like whose whiting was bigger
or exactly how many times I passed out. But more, there
are things I cannot separate. The colour of the river and
the sun, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, it
goes on forever.
My father lay his rod down on the rocks and I went to wind
it in. It was the first time I heard the current in my blood.
The last time, now that I think about it, high in the heat and
glare, standing on the kind of rock you know you are
never safe from.
A piece of writing I call ‘beautiful’, in that it has great precision and control over the tone. There is structure which perfectly contains the thought, the structure seems to be a function of the poem rather than an imposition on it. There are images which are not overt and glaring, in fact they don’t seem like images at all, the sense are invoked with subtlety. An acknowledgement that the sound of the poem, the feel of it in the mouth is critical to its success. It has an intelligence which gives it depth but it is not ‘about the cleverness of the poet’. And so on. These are qualities to be lauded in poetry, combined they create that sense of the poem as a beautiful thing, despite the apparent darkness of its subject. Sorry about the long comment, but I am trying to find a point to poetry and in the end, I have decided that there is nothing more honourable these days than the creation of beauty from the mess that language has become and this poem is a wonderful example of that, perfectly timed too. Thanks, Graham.
Thank you Paul… it is true, to create a thing of beauty from the mess of language is a wonderful thing. Glad you found beauty in these words.
thank you, for inviting me into the story, making me afraid, my boy is 6 and just this morning he slipped on a big black rock that he couldnt see…
what a treasure of an experience, well that is what i am enjoying, especially what’s going on between ‘mum and dad’ in your poem. Have you entered that competition for the touring of Ireland and UK?
Am glad I opened a door into the story for you Therese… those rocks sure can be nasty!
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I love that poem – perfect. I think Paul has said it all in his comment.
Thanks Gabe. I think will post the audio of this over at The Pool as part of the rivers project.