The Cliff Face

Here, the rock moves imperceptibly,
smooth through the rough ground
of peat and shale and fossils composed.

Wildly hang the crags at the summit,
cracked with age, from the weather wearing down,
a curlew cruising high overhead, wailing

for the coming of another storm,
the second in as many days, and mid-cliff-face,
three hundred feet up, four hundred from the summit

I try not to panic. I am young but have weathered
many a storm, the elements shall not have their way
nor do the strains of aching joints concern me greatly.

It can be done. I will wait for you, should I survive,
at the precipice, carve your image as I make each
movement, and hope that the trust I placed in you

was one of my wiser moves.