I want to return <br />To that storm-hewn cliff, <br />And, this time use it's sanctuary, <br />Make use of the gale, <br />Wrap myself in the gull cries, <br />Feel the sharpwarm grass at my feet. <br />I want to return to where the tides <br />Feel a greater sense of rage, <br />At having their erroding edge blunted <br />On the flint coastal fringe, <br />To return to weep the tears <br />Left for my father. <br />Having lived a life lost, <br />He survived in these hard wild places, <br />Hiding, weeping for himself <br />In that elemental treehouse <br />Beloved of small boys <br />Cast in the role of men. <br />I want to weep where he lived his sadness, <br />In concert with the textured browngreen, <br />To seek communion with him <br />Where we once built our dykes. <br />All of that wasted time will stand for me <br />Solid as the permanence of that place, <br />And I will stand before it <br />In a sense of last rites.<br /><br />Robert Wylie<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-sense-of-last-rites/
