Remembering

I did not want to be among the remembering,
nor walk the black macadam out of duty,
nor intone any note of tenderness or of compassion,
but instead, to make my way against the chill wind of truth.

So alone I walked to piping Oyster Catchers
and gazed incredulous at the deceit, hot springs
rising in stealth from an Arctic sea, until they, and I
resolutely ascending and rounding the headland,
were subsumed in liquid flint.

Gone now, were the rugged contours, the purple hills,
the golden dunes and defiant basalt causeway.
But this: dank, cold, and disfigured, was our world.

For she was strong and he was weak.
She provided and he squandered.
But when the anchor failed,
and an anchor must not fail!

Cast off she was, for the rock of self reliance.

I did not want to be among the remembering,
nor walk the black macadam out of duty,
nor intone any note of tenderness or of compassion,
but instead, to make my way - remembering
against the chill wind of truth.

__________

© Cormac McCloskey