Carmel Point
The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of surburban houses–
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads–
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.
— Robinson Jeffers
This poem is packed with comforting metaphors for me today, but also my grandfather was for a time a lighthouse keeper at Pigeon Point, just a bit up the coast from Carmel. Grandma had prints of the lighthouse in her home, and she had as well a model lighthouse with one little light burning, so I know it meant a lot to her.
Fresnel Lighting of Pigeon Point Lighthouse by Sudheendra Vijayakumar, and used under a Creative Commons license.
{hugs}
Sorry for your loss. I know how much she meant to you.
My sympathies.
Sorry for your loss. She will live on in your memories and in you.
I am very sorry for the loss of your grandmother. My grandmother passed away 10 days ago. We were certainly fortunated to have the presence of these women in our lives into our adulthood. May your wonderful memories of time with her be a comfort to you.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I know she will be much loved and much remembered.
Leslie– I’m sorry for your loss. When my grandmother died two years ago, I kept telling people who offered consolation how lucky I’d been to have had her for so long–it’s not every 40-year-old who still has a living grandparent. But the fact is I wanted to keep her forever and it’s hard to say goodbye to someone you’ve loved for 40 years. The good news is how present she still feels to me. I was delighted what you wrote to your grandmother about how much fun it would have been to be young together! I wish I’d told mine that. Thanks, too, for the Jeffers poem.
*HUGS* She sounds like an incredible woman! I’m so sorry for your loss.
Leslie, I know that this is a difficult loss. How wonderful that your grandmother knew how much she meant to you!