On Some Primeval Shore Poem by Brian P FitzGerald

I

No soul sees:

The sun is hot, the water’s warm,
No children laugh, no joggers run;
On sandy beach no footprints are left;
No bathers splash, no sea-gull’s cry, not one

No humans observe:

Torrents of water from far-distant mountains
Through alpine ravine with slopes of scree,
With fragments of tree-fern and coarse sandy grit –
Now sluggish and slow and dropped out to sea.

No person hears:

A rumble of thunder across the strand;
Raindrops spot the beach before the tide
Now spreads its mud across the sand,
And wavelets with silt the ripples hide.

II

Investigation:

“Sir”, he cries, “that boulder, on the shore! ”
The students they watch as chisel strikes the block
The fissile gritstone begins to crack; “more! ”
They cry; it splits, they stare, “see, the rock……..”

Revelation:

No sitting in class, no passage in book, I swear,
Can grip the mind and so amaze
As now the sight on which the pupils stare -
A hidden revelation as pupils gaze.

Understanding:

Their minds now thrill at what’s before,
Gritstone is split; a gasp of breath:
A scene revealed - a sandy shore:
Ripples in the sand and a shower that passed.