Expressions Of Vast Distances

Pattaya and Lyme Regis share
the same seaside indolence
indifferently, aware of distance
and worn-out soubriquets,
inured to wide-eyed innocence.

We stood on the cliffs where
the plinth marking beginnings
of awareness stands, where the
Jurassic Coast stares back
in sandstone colours of ages
past, ages outlasting ever
imaginative expressions of vast
and inconceivable distances.

And on the seaward hillside
with its fresh mole-casts littering,
hearing the farmer singing his cows in,
sensing an ambience-in-being,
a purity of patience-in-waiting.

That day near Budleigh
Salterton we sat in an old
thatched inn, washed off
the dust of ages past,
ate rogan josh, drank
Otter Bitter for lunch.
© 6 September 2007, I. D. Carswell