Water trickles from the base of the cliff –
it’s found its way along fault lines and cracks,
smoothing its own way down, whispering
of storms and oceans and wide green rivers,
muttering of the life that moves through kelp
and grass, the strength of trees, the softness
of apple blossom, murmuring of rain,
patiently wearing a path, carving a gorge,
a cave.
Water, soft as a lover’s finger tip.
One drop of water.
One tsunami crashing.
The drowned sleep,
embracing emptiness.
Water slaps solid liquid hard as steel,
crushing, unstoppable – it will always find a way,
like love, like anger, like grief, it is
a metaphor for its own strength.
This wet country, where the water coils and swirls,
carving the cliff edge, leaving raw rock, stones spilt
on a stony beach.
“I’d sleep in the back bedroom” we say,
looking at the house at the cliff edge, waiting to fall.
We imagine we’d escape.
We won’t.
A poem for Earthweal,where we contemplate the state of this beautiful planet, and the climate catastrophe we have created. Thank you to Brendan for this prompt.
Sarah writes poems 
Love that last verse, Sarah! Sarcasm is vastly underrated!
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I like sarcasm. I’m glad you read it that way, it’s hard to write a tone of voice.
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Gorgeous flowing here, one’s ear and one’s body lifts and lilts along. Such magesterial cave systems underground in the UK, all that water sloshing and carving. I found the flow beautiful, sonorous and womblike–a “wet country,” yes. We only think we master water. Thanks for bringing it by earthweal. — Brendan
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Drop or tsunami, water has power. I love that the house is the whole world. Sleeping further away from the shore will not save us. Very fine poem.
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Oh yes, I live at the edge of the sea too. Tsunami a very real possibility – not “if” but “when”. I can see that house at the edge of the cliff………..a wonderful view, but the nagging thought always in the back of our minds…..any day it could happen. Our last serious alert was in 2017. Much earthquake activity recently. I feel that “We imagine we’d escape. We won’t.” We likely won’t either.
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Intensely vivid writing–I can almost physically feel the water, dripping, condensing, on my skin, trickling a sensation both soothing and ominous, and who hasn’t had that thought of foolish and false hope you wrap up and discard as the trash it is in the last line, which is just killer. Really an excellent poem, that both flows with the prompt, and would exist and succeed just as well standing alone if one had no idea there was one. Great to meet your poetry!
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That ending is as sudden and devastating as a sledge hammer.
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Love the last stanza of this poem. We never think it can happen to us.How many of those with their heads snugly in the sand imagine they’ll escape.
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I can see the power and the flow of water through this magnificent poem Sarah. The truth in your lines is spot on and hits right at the gut of things.
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