On the Cliffs in the Wind

There was a season when one of the nicknames the poet carried was "The Cliff Runner" because he took so many risks in his personal life, the metaphor of him as a man running across the face of a cliff, leaping from stone to precarious perch, made sense. This piece was about a rebirth after his second marriage, a promise to again take risks and be brave in the face of danger to his heart and sanity.

On the Cliffs in the Wind

the cliffs are calling.

that keening catches the Santa Ana winds
and sails high and far
to find me
wanting to know when I shall return
to run the rocks again.

the stones know no age.

and here, in a cage of time,
I have no good answer for them.
or for myself.

perhaps this is the arc
of my redemption.
having played the fool
for the pretenders to a throne
I must one last time
make the Topanga Run
barefoot
and with the sun on the horizon.

placing odds against the gods
that infected me with conscience
to carry it to a race
resistant yet
to the purifier of blood.

crimson.

and I have allowed myself
to be the fall guy for the fallen.

and the morningstar
is now so far

it radiates no heat

to compete

with the memory of who
or what
I was

and am

and yet shall find

on the cliffs in the wind.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.