Spitting Cave, sacred and sleepless
under the sheets of the sea
turning ,murmuring,
in the impression
that even the most solid of walls
dissolve eventually.
A breath goes in and sometimes death comes out,
with a tremendous mist
like the projecting of a myth,
a requiem for the unfortunate of fate
drawn to the edge of this place,
only to recede back
then double forward
like the delicate dance of the tide.
They are as bold as they are blind,
concealed in an earthen fold,
not muted by time,
something of them remains,
a spirit expressed in spray,
a raised image in salt
the ocean cannot wash away
the residual scar
raised like a plaque,
sunlit and speaking of those
who never crawled back to shore.
How reason turns to rock here,
madness in the spectacle of leap.
The rush of adrenaline,
one plunge into the snare of the sea
luring from within the energy
of internal proving grounds.
Young men mostly,
coming again and again to tempt providence
but without victory,
they become victims to the same trajectory,
tiny ripples in a massive wave of remorse.
In the mind’s eye all of Argos can collapse
into darkness, into the recesses of cliffs
where white rocks of deposit
are like ancient offerings to a coming crest
when history repeats itself
from pools of unspeakable depth.
Brief, our comparative windows,
the difference between life and death
just a shade or a hue,
cloud shadow and a stranded moon
mark the fleeting presence
on the edge of this precipice.
Another massive spray paints the perfect surface,
where we can glean something
from this museum of lost souls
sucked back into undulation and gone again.
The early light,
makeshift wife to empathy,
reeling from decades
of supporting something fading.
Time sets them free in the end
and with only memories, we’re left to grasp at air.
Cliff diver, into the sky you disappear,
your crystalline skin like a cracked lens,
roseate at the edges of traumatic moments
we piece together bit by bit.
You can still see the fateful flight,
how it surfaces and replays
for you alone this morning,
for no one else weeps for them but the sea,
cascading down the cliff’s face
like a torrent of emotion
symbolically stirring
in the watery graves underneath.
yakskinpocketnotes 