Limpets

Limpets. (c. Laura Harrison McBride 2013)

The little town clings to the hills rising from

the small harbour, the working harbour,

a harbour that spawns fishermen. And Fisherman's Friends. But this is

not about the untimely death

of a singer. Not a lament for the man who lamented "The Last Leviathan"

and made me cry. Every time. Every time I heard his poet's voice.

It is about life on the windy coast of Cornwall. It is

about the landscape. It is

about the messy farm atop the hill. The farm where

black earth, inked with generations of bovine

excretions, maybe blood, perhaps

petrol spills slithers between rock buildings and

aluminium buildings and wooden

buildings. But the house, higher up, sheltered from the

sweet sickly smell of a dairy farm.

The house, large, not too old, but still

looking as if it never gets any warmer than yesterday's tea.

Held up, like drooping teats with an underwire bra, by iron crosses

hammered into the wall, two of them, to hold crossbeams in place, floor

above floor. Sooner

or later, it will tumble down.

In town, streets barely a car wide, snake 

around ancient dwellings. Cornishmen

and women lived in them, do still in some. Others

cater to the ice-cream-flavoured tastes of emmits. Emmits, 

Cornish for ants, crawling from Up Country to the unspoiled shore, spoiled

with demands for fast food, entertainment, surfing lessons,

gewgaws and gimcracks to take back.

Above the town, a clearing offers a coast view of big rocks, small birds.

People pulled along by dogs in coats sniffing posts, ignoring early

daffodils seeking warmth in weak sun. Suddenly hungry, haring off 

toward Polzeath and a beachside cafe

open all year. But cold. "Larry, turn up the heat," the woman squawks to

a man taking not much money in for surf lessons in his cafe back booth.

The latte was excellent.

Coastal Cornwall. Real, still, I think. Despite emmits. Despite foreigners

like me. 

Some claim, I have, to be here, 

having grown up on a cold island in the north Atlantic. A sand island, 

not rock, stretching out from sparkling Manhattan toward

England. 

Offering sea spray and even, in my youth, a few fishermen. 

A few daffodils poking out early. Horses. Chickens. Ducks. My yes, Long Island ducks. And fresh seafood.

Like a limpet I am, clinging to anything I can reach at the

edges of continents, the edges of the sea.  A fisherman's friend,

the limpet. Something to gather when fish don't run. Limpets

are always there.

At the edge of the sea. Doing sea things.

At home by the sea.