The Work of Time

And, coming down over the fields
Perhaps you might stop,
At that sudden revelation of ocean shore.
Yes,
Just, stop.
Close your eyes, 
Is there a breeze on your cheek ? 
Breathe deep,
The smell of the shore
That estuarine tang of evolutionary spoor. 

A gull wheels overhead,
Spying you, standing, solitary, 
Fixing you with its implacable yellow eye. 

And here, now, look how this endless blessing of light enfolds us,
Endless clouds slow dancing
As this edge of earth entrances us, onward,
To clank,
                down,
                           the iron,
                                         steps. 

Drawn by Mother Ocean from the start,
Our liquid forms amphibian hearts
Slithering ashore like ammonite memories,
Strange new creatures' liminal territories.
Looking for footholds on this rocky ledge,
Finding perfect pathways laid in sediment. 

Behind you now the very work of time
The layer upon layer of geology's line,
Limestone, mudstone, bituminous shale,
Quantock here surfacing, lifting a veil,
Made from two hundred million years perhaps,
Of plankton bloom and fault line gaps,
Seas becoming solid,
Matter made from waves.

But now,
Now we have kidnapped Chronos, God of time, 
Holding a gun to his head with our fossil fuel crime.

The gull turns away,  high on the westerley wind,
Soaring up over Hinkley scavenging for leftovers
Where we make radio isotopes that last a million years,
Hoping our tiny planet will still be the one thats blue and green,
In the cold grey silence of empty space,
Hoping that Mother Ocean will hold us still, in tide's embrace.