Halfway between Charmouth and Lyme Regis
the tumbled rocks
from the crumbling cliffs above
bring to a close the beach
that you follow
eyes down searching
from Charmouth
they mark the point beyond which
you will be cut off by a rising tide
and face a choice between
pressing on to Lyme Regis
or struggling back over the hump
of sticky Liassic blue-grey clay
and braving falling rocks
to regain the beach.
Though we did not know it as such
back then
this is the so-called Jurassic Coast
one of them at least
because the rocks curve up
through the country
like a spine with scoliosis
to emerge again in Yorkshire
with its counterclaim to
tourists seeking fossils
and imagining a dinosaur-infested past.
But Charmouth was made famous for fossils
by Mary Anning, a glorious amateur
who walked this beach every day
especially after winter storms
threw down hidden treasures
from the cliffs. Mary found
the first complete Ichthyosaur
and too, found fame
clawing it from begrudging
academics of the day.
But back to the rocks
midway along the route
from tiny Charmouth
to bustling Lyme Regis
once graced by royalty.
These rocks entrap in sheltered pockets
miraculous casts of eons dead shells
the gold of iron pyrites
fools gold gleaming
in the dross of sand
and tiny pebbles
Find them if you can
before the next storm
crashes into the rocks
and sweeps the treasure
out to sea.
It was my mother
on childhood holidays
eschewing the search for
larger, showier fossils
despite the joy of splitting rocks
thwacking them just so
with her specially purchased
geologist’s hammer
she settled down
to search among the rocks
and finding the tiny, perfect
overlooked treasures.
The last time I went there
seeking out this secret trove
hoping against hope
that I remembered still
where X marked the spot
this secret trove
which most people pass by
in their search for bigger things
I was summoned away for half-an-hour
whilst a scene for “Ammonite”
about the life of Mary Anning
was filmed a few feet from
my treasure seeking
and when, months later
I watched the finished film
I recognised my absent self
just out of shot.
I have been on that beach
my whole life
just out of shot
in my mind’s eye
a treasured memory
of times past
fossilised in fools gold.
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
This is just fabulous. I love the long dangling breathless lines, so much like a holiday should be – totally relaxing and at its own tempo.
Thank you Misky – I am hoping to read it at the dVerse Poets Pub tomorrow
It was great to hear you read this, Andrew ~ and such an interesting piece! Love it.
~David
Thanks David and I will reply to your poem too later on today.
I enjoyed your reading, Andrew, and reading it again has given me a chance to appreciate it better. I love the sounds in ‘the tumbled rocks / from the crumbling cliffs’ and ‘sticky Liassic blue-grey clay’, which evoke the sounds of the coast. I also love the image in these lines:
‘…the rocks curve up
through the country
like a spine with scoliosis’
and the lovely cameo of your mother:
‘eschewing the search for
larger, showier fossils
despite the joy of splitting rocks
thwacking them just so
with her specially purchased
geologist’s hammer’.
As I said last night Kim, the dVerse challenges have helped inject a lot more poetic elements into my free verse and you have excavated the best bits of this poem – almost like fossil hunting! I now feel that not every line has to be “poetic” and that it is hard to do that anyway when you are telling a story. Several people last night talked about feeling forced by tighter forms and free verse is so much more relaxed in that way. So now I am happy if my loaf is leavened with enough poetic bits to make it rise enough…
Thanks for your comment – it was lovely to see and hear you again too.
Disappointed I missed you reading it.😔
I knew I recognized Lyme Regis and then you said Mary Anning. I was just reading about her not very long ago. Her life is fascinating, what’s known of it.
Your writing is fascinating, too. I love the descriptive imagery of the beach, the cliffs, the falling rocks. I especially liked the last stanza.
Thank you Melissa – I don’t think I will make Saturday but I hope to meet you virtually one day – especially as you are on the team now! I have said a few things about this poem in replies to comments. It was written quite recently in a writing group I attend on line…
This is incredibly potent! I loved hearing you read this today at Open Link LIVE! 💖💖
Thanks Sanaa – reading poetry aloud, my own or other people’s is such a pleasure! I belong to a writing group and Deborah, the facilitator first reads a poem and then often asks for someone else to read it. Frequently, nobody jumps forward and I am secretly delighted and volunteer – sometimes I wonder if they all like to hear my English accent (as they are all Americans) whatever – I love to read…
I enjoyed your reading, Andrew.
“Find them if you can” may refer to those pyrite encrusted fossils, but I also see it as a connection to memories of something so distant, yet significant, that one would do anything to preserve.
Very perceptive Ken – my mother was great in many respects but she was overly fearful which had a damaging effect on us children and this poem, I realised after writing it, went some way towards rehabilitating her in my memory…
What a wonderful read Andrew. It made me want to be there, to have that experience. It also introduced me to Mary Anning, a person of whom I was unaware. She sounds fascinating. Nice have made your acquaintance — virtually. I have essentially been away from the group the past few weeks owing to a family challenge. Nice write here my friend.
Thank you so much Rob – I have been reading various peoles’ poems from the pub for a while now and it makes such a difference to see and hear them read – good to meet you too…
I so much enjoyed your reading, and the story it told. I had never heard the story of Mary Anning. Interesting how much an amateur could do at that point. My great grandfather who was the first one to get an education became a priest (as was often the case) but also a very good bothanist.
Thanks Bjorn (sorry I can’t do the correct o on my phone) do watch the film if you can – her personal life is embellished in a way that I am not sure there is much foundation for but it is a good film and shows the places and her work well. So good to put a face to you and to hear your beautiful sing-song accent.
I really like this poem, and it was great to hear you read it, Andrew. I have a fondness for history and science poems, and I like how you mix your family history with Mary Anning’s discovery, the movie making, geology, and geography. There are many wonderful lines, but this one stood out so much that I mentioned it to my husband later.
“this is the so-called Jurassic Coast
one of them at least
because the rocks curve up
through the country
like a spine with scoliosis”
Thank you Merril – if you look at the geological map of Britain you will see what I mean…
It was wonderful to hear you read this on OLN LIVE! Apologies I did not recognize you….I’d been traveling for a month – and had not hosted OLN LIVE in a bit – I don’t believe you were on any of the past OLN LIVEs I hosted. So, nice to meet you! 🙂
I’d never heard of Mary Anning….so will no have to find this movie to watch. What I’m struck by in this poem, is how you take us there with you….and then add the reflection and background of your mother’s connection to the place and the fossil hunting. And as I mentioned in OLN LIVE, these words really brought the place “home” to me:
“the rocks curve up
through the country
like a spine with scoliosis”
So glad you joined us at OLN LIVE. Hope to see you many more times at dVerse!
Thank you Lillian it was a pleasure for me too and only my second OLN LIVE – I don’t think I can make tomorrow but I look forward to seeing you again…
The poem meanders gracefully as observer and walker amongst the details of memory formed and re-imagined and experienced anew. Amazing how a landscape can shape us without our knowing it until we suddenly recognize ourselves in it and know after all we will always be a part of it, and it of us. Beautifully done!
Thank you, Dora, all in all, I have been very gratified by the response to this poem and it has meant a lot to me personally – more than I anticipated as I wrote it…
Beautiful poem. It is wonderfully relaxing and I feel that I was walking along there. It sounds wonderful.
Thank you Di! It’s strange – I wrote this in a writing group to a prompt of “Write about an ordinary place which others might find unremarkable and then about why it is special to you…” and this is what came out. I remember how you can trust your brain to make a sketch of say, a cow, yet if you THINK too hard about it you couldn’t do it. Same thing with this poem – some part of my mind must have been ordering, keeping an eye on the time allotted to write, bringing up stuff from way down in the memory/unconscious, trying to get some poetic lines into the mix – but how that all works – it’s a kind of miracle…
You made the trek come to life, in living color, walking alongside you every step. I was struck by the thought that most of us pass by the wondrously simple things in our lives as we search for the bigger … the golden baubles. Great seeing you this morning!
Thank you Helen and that is a great take away from the poem – good to see you too!