Standing High On Beachy Head Poem by Colin Breck Boardman

Standing high on Beachy head
Between the sea and sky,
Stood I like the walking dead
Not really understanding why.

Beneath my clumsy falling feet
Down, down the cliff-face fell,
Sharply white to quite delete
All witness of each fallen shell.

The tempting rocks all lapp'd and waved
So small as far away,
In dizziness a stillness craved
As Edgar did once clear convey.

Catching gusts of molecules
Some scavengers of feather,
Suspended from their follicles,
Defied the English earth and weather;

Beside me sat a peregrine
Alighted from a cliff-top ledge,
A ball upon a bowling green,
So shared we both this mortal edge.

She looked up high towards the clouds
With eyes more powerful than mine
And deeming two a busy crowd
She launched away and left no sign.

The golden globe shone through my heart
With warmth sent from a recent past
As memories began to start
Endeepening my shadow cast.

And as the shadow seemed to send
Its message 'cross our star's bright face
A heavy silence did descend
And birds in panic backwards raced.

With slowest creep, the black mood bled,
And did Apollo smother,
As when Daphne from his loving fled,
And transformed to something other.

Yet, when the final consummation met my troubled mind,
Eclipsing all before me by draining forth the light,
I wondered at the glory of our heaven's great design
Whose orbs had lined themselves together for my humble sight;

To time their meeting out in space upon an orbit's turn,
Spinning round with no concern as is their usual way,
While with clockwork movement which no ancient eye did spurn
They flowed along in quiet dance to quite ashame the day.

Then finally the playful Sun played peek-a-boo once more,
To shine again upon my vantage steep,
And I, beside my dark and open door,
Turned back to face the North and did not leap.