Limpet - between the tides

                                  By Christopher Mathews

 

Oblivious of men, she keeps her small safe world, locked away from crashing waves, but she never makes a pearl.

 

No precious jewels are secure and safe inside her secret cave. She has no time between the waves to be a human’s slave.

 

Record of the years, the cycles of the moon, marked in calcium layers, she paints her little room, now dark now light, now blue now white, the health of the sea is held in each, the container of her life.

 

The ebb and flow of tide, are her night and day, now wet now dry now hot now cool, deep beneath the waves.

 

Slowly graze the limestone crags, the gravestones of the ships of men. Hold fast, be strong, all winter long, when storms must always come.

 

Hold tight, hold tight, with all you might, when the pecking seagull comes. be tough, survive and live your life, my armour plated one.

 

Like the grooves of a record or the rings of a tree, she marks the years of famine or of plenty. First he then she, then young now old, the solitary life of the limpet is seldom ever told.

© Christopher Mathews