They have dug a fresh
grave
Just beyond that group
of old headstones
Where a lush green
forest begins
She plays her bugle
As her father rows his
small craft out to sea
A boy half-naked
crawls tiredly onto the rocky shore
In his hand a crab he
has carried from the depths
The children are
beyond gravity
Their bodies grow
upright
I do not see an end to
their beauty
They hear the strange
echoes made from yelling up the rock cliff
They listen for
answers the echoes can not give
Still there are echoes
they can not hear
They see faces in the
jaded rocks
Too high for climbing
Even their young
strong thighs and arms could not get them there
He fixes his hair in a
tidepool
Nearly losing the
little girl
A seagull flies over
the waters
And the children dive
in off the jetty without hesitation
A group of the boys
seen earlier gather on the shore
They want to see her
nude body exposed
She hides nervously in
the crevices refusing to show herself
But after all she
appears shaming the hysterical boys
The boys’ cruel
indifference
She laughs as she
plays with the phone booth
Fake conversations
none can know
The group of boys yell
up at the rocky monoliths
They are searching for
the boy who was with the girl earlier
He hides high up in
the crags and watches the boys below
He calls for the girl
lost somehow
The immovable stones
give no answer
But she is back again
With her bugle chasing
a man’s footprints in the sun drenched sand
Some Russian
song is sung as she boards a train for the city
The boy chases yelling
her name
But she is smiling to
leave the cliffs and the seas with her uncle
She sticks her head out
looking forward
She thinks little of
the boy chasing the train
© Philip Marlin, 2020
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| Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons |
