A Place I'd Like to Be Right Now

I wish it was time and I could be there right now,

With salt of the sea and brimstone of guano,

Deep in my throat and tasting somehow,

Of all the fish in all the seas that slam hard below,

To wash away the ancient granite cliff bases,

Where ice cold splashes dash hard against rock,

And reach up beckoning to youthful faces,

From roaring growlers which grumble and mock,

Humanity's dominion in the long chill of time,

When we'll be just a memory like sea foam and rime.

From clifftop yellow streaks on heads glaring white,

Black-tipped wings fold back in terminal dive,

Splash! Fountains, geysers of spume in the light,

of morning where teeming waves of gannets thrive,

In their thousands all here together they scream,

And call, argue, fuss, fight, eat and bicker,

While the guillemots, cormorants and puffins stream.

Across trade winds shouting, they race to be quicker,

To catch food to give to the hungry mouths gaping,

In cliff side nests dangling many hundreds of feet,

Over ice-cold deep ocean the cold current shaping,

the type of each food, each morsel, each treat.

It's the altar of the future, life's next generation,

A cacophony of clamouring, a whole winged nation.

To dangle my feet over the gulf vast and yawning,

My hands on the cool loam in tall smothering grass,

With the burn of the sun looming long after dawning,

And the hint in the wind as it pushes to pass,

Through these high canyons roiling with so many wings,

By the call of the icy Labrador current streaming south,

From much further northward where the gyrfalcon sings,

Of the taste of raw seal blubber oily, rubbery in my mouth.

But back here at St. Mary's I listen to the whales,

As they whoosh for their breath and slap their great tails.

It is here in this place while it's so boiling with life,

Listening to the wild flutter of puffin wings flapping,

That I long to go now far from the pointless screened strife,

To where cormorants race over Basking sharks napping.

Those cliffs are still out there in the cold Atlantic swell,

Upon them my thoughts linger, drift, fly high and then dwell.

Well folks, I got what I believe is my last publisher rejection letter today, (I'll have to check my records to be sure) so I needed to take a trip to one of my happiest places. Thanks for coming along.