At Three Castles Head we Catch our Breath

We come from a hidden ocean and go to an unknown ocean. – Antonio Machado

A flat, faulted slab of cliff soars and shimmers far above us then slants far below, into a young ocean we call the Atlantic. Bedded sandstones have been tilted on edge here – dust of disappeared mountains, compressed beneath the weight of disappeared oceans. What cosmic accident engendered this relentless complexity of being – the hot metal core, the mantle heavily swirling under new hills, thin-floored oceans, fragile cities, and under the flowering bank of earth behind us, which responds again to the nearing of a star, each unfolding primrose an inch of yellow velvet, each heavy violet teetering on its slim stem, and us, latecomers, balanced between cliff and flowers, trying to comprehend both, trying to catch our breath.

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