Closing my eyes on a cliff path 1

I came close to blindness

Three years ago
Ten years ago
Forty years ago
Three near misses –

So I often think
Where would I be
without sight?

What would I know
of this day, this path?

Heat bounces
from the rock.

My ears tell the tale
of waves breaking far below.

I hear how the combine-harvester
sweeps around the field, away and back,
the blessed absence of cars.

Stonechat and chough
tell me their names,
oyster-catcher,
curlew and kittiwake call.

The birds tell me of scrubland,
open cliff, or the washed-out
shallow pan of the estuary.

Bees fumble the sweet gorse
beneath the small flies’ higher whine.

Oh but what I would miss!

velvet brown butterflies
cinnabar moths flash red
thistledown floating in the hot air
kestrel hanging by a thread

gannet arrowing to the sea
a seal’s sleek head

And the cliff edge –
Fickle, fragile, lethal

I could never come here alone
If I could not see.

Would you bring me?