The Landslide Poem by David Lewis Paget

‘There are times and tides in every life,
There are things we never planned, ’
The old man said to his grandson there
As he took him by the hand,
‘It may come soon, or it may come late,
It may be the final fall,
But when it does you may find you’re left
With your back against the wall.’

The lad stood still on the rocky ledge
He was more than petrified,
For half the cliff had given way
In a sudden, great landslide,
The path that they had travelled on
Had plummeted into the bay,
There was no forward, and no way back
Where they stood on the cliff that day.

‘Do you think they’ll come to rescue us,
Do they even know we’re here? ’
The lad had cried in the first aside
Of his terror, and his fear,
The old man looked at the darkening light
And the clouds foretold a storm,
‘I think that we’ll be stranded here
All night, till the early morn.’

The old man looked where the cliff above
Had an overhanging ridge,
There was no way to clamber up
From their place on the narrow ledge,
And straight below, two hundred feet
Was the churn of an angry sea,
‘I think we’ll have to be more than brave
My boy, just you and me.’

The night came on with a swirl of wind
The first from an evening squall,
While they sat down on the narrow ledge
Their backs to the old cliff wall,
The lad was cold and his face was pale
So his grandpa held him tight,
‘Just think of what you can tell your friends
Once back from this dreadful night.’

The rain that came was torrential,
They both were soaked to the skin,
He wrapped his coat all around the boy
But he felt him shivering,
‘This brings back memories from the war
I was sat in an LCT,
Waiting for it to come and land
And to set the beaches free.’

The lad perked up, said, ‘tell me more,
Did you find yourself afraid? ’
‘We knew the odds, we had gone to war
And the mines, they all were laid,
We hit the beach and they dropped the door
I was waist deep in the sea,
Trying to make it into shore
But I lived, and so can we! ’

The boy was shivering constantly,
He’d die before the morn,
The old man struggled him to his feet,
‘We have to get you warm!
We’re both stood here in our LCT
And we’re brave, our hearts are pumped…’
He turned and smiled at the lad, and then,
Holding hands, they jumped!

28 February 2015