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Choppy waves at Three Cliffs
on the Gower Peninsula

The sea seethes
boils with bubbles
bursting upwards
breaking the surface

Boys and girls
screech with delight
grab buckets and shrimp nets
abandon the rock pools
rush into the sea
and scoop up
dancing mackerel
so deep the shoal
a boy could easily
walk on their backs

The shoal moves on
as swiftly as it arrived
silence after the storm
peace is restored
broken only by the sigh
of wind and waves

Commentary

            Inspiration can arrive from the most unlikely places. My friend Yolande texted me a photo of the silent stillness, after the summer hustle and bustle, of the almost empty harbor by the wharf in Shediac. Then, without warning, a shoal of fish broke the surface. She put her cell phone into video mode and filmed the tumbling waters, the flashing silver backs, the sudden disturbance. It was a short video. Within seconds, the shoal vanished and the harbor returned to its former peace and stillness.

            So much inspiration comes from our own memories. In my case, a visit to Three Cliffs, on the Gower Peninsula, yielded much the same experience. Yolande’s video prompted me to recall it.

Intertextuality – texts talking to texts. Memory – the search for time past and the restoration of memory. So much can be generated from our creative memories of childhood when we receive inspiration.