Cliff face, fossils scattered, inchoate
expanses of sea and sky and land
edge me beyond vertigo, 
above this empty space.

These trilobites  
with their 521 million year
residency,
lie under foot
as we listen to the relentless
crashing of the waves
the slow sliding of the tides.

Ruins, runes, remains,:
of cliffs built upon generations
of the dead.
Fossils lying about time and space:
human remains: a speck,
a fragment on the surface
of earth.

Like the sea, we roll on, 
some try to turn back
the time and tide,
others despair and hide away.
I take heart
from the slow withdrawing roar
of time's indifference.
I see
children"s footprints in the sand,
a zone of proximal development,
for me.