The Tide Was Out Poem by jim hogg

atonement's not an option now
and there's no choice, no easy out
I'm on a cliff edge looking down
I should be scared to slacken, shrug
but I don't care, and this time: her
who placidly declined the crowd
and stood alone against the wall
beside the female prefects' room

a gorgeous apparition now
connected by these earthly things
the gravity and grace of love
to someone she might never know
for moments or a thousand years
of passing nods and nothing more
when longer days and longer nights
were full of trembling destiny

along the lush and fertile shore
the tide was out and she was there
beyond the moon, beneath the blue
that shades into forgetlessness
and filled the space that fills this life
I'm lifted by the lift of her
and cries of Sugar Baby Love
a gravel track, a sixties car
a riding through, a turning back
a wooden shack, an empty floor
and just for once I'm brave enough
it's really her and when we touch
that secret truth comes chiming in
the word, the thought I daren't think
that single name amongst them all
that I refused to recognise

so many years oblivious