Every Sunday
After lunch we would walk
Over the fields to the cliff top
Where I would dawdle and stop
And stare and wonder and dream dreams
Beyond the horizon.
Every June
I would go down to
Sands cooled in evening sunshine
And in space emptied of trippers unwind
And let gentle waves wash my exam-jammed mind clean
Ready for the next challenge.
Every trip home
I would crunch through
The pebbles searching for treasures
Cast up by the ocean, cast out from the measures
Of rocks housing fossils, once living and now
Finding new meaning again.
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Life is now landlocked.
Coasting: where the sea’s in my dreams
The cliffs and the harbours and beaches
Are locked in the dim, distant reaches
Of my mind which still yearns
For life by the coast.
Liz Obadina
27th June 2017
6 comments:
A lovely poem with a yearning and perhaps a sense of sadness for what has gone.
Thanks Jennie - when I wrote this I was thinking mainly about aging, the hopes I'd had when I was young - and still have - which are still to be fulfilled.
This poem was posted to test our new Feedback private site.
Some detailed comments were made to which Liz replied:
3. Elizabeth Obadina says:
21 March 2025 at 9:18 pmEdit
Many thanks Jennie and John – Although I only posted Coast and The Everlasting Cloud to test Suzie’s new system I’ve found your comments very helpful. John – I will try to remember to hyphenate more! I used measures to rhyme with treasures and also because of the geological meaning – strata wouldn’t have sounded so good. Unwind / And – no punctuation because the enjambment allows the continuation of the thought, continuing meaning. Yes Jennie the yearning is still there and the time is still passing and I’m still wondering what lies over the horizon six decades later!
Also :) each stanza represents a stage in my life. 1st early dreams. 2nd taking exams/training and 3rd - the stanza John found 'clunky' has a rhythm in it representing trudging through being a grown-up with lots of responsibilities - definitely a clunky time!! - when occasionally something would turn up to make me remember and return to the dreams of my youth. BTW the photographs on the blog are the places which inspired each stanza.
the repetition of the word locked in the last stanza is that bit I find most sad - you're trapped somewhere whilst longing for something else.
Hadn't clocked that! My subconscious is clearly leaking through my poetry.
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