the casual car horns for all the world like arguing seagulls
the sound of the traffic is the waves which run into the beaches I miss
and which surfers ride
and in which young and old swim.
The cars on its streets are fishing boats
home with their catch
rounding the headlands
into the estuary and into the harbour to unload.
An occasional siren many streets away
is excited children
shrieking as they play in and out of the shallows
under a mother's watchful gaze
and with the kind of joy only a child on a beach could feel and express!
Although this is Paris - it isn't mine.
Here I sit at my open window
many miles from home
many miles from the sea I crave but whose perfume I cannot sense - whose power I cannot feel.
Those edges where the land tumbles onto the waves
those edges I was brought up knowing
those edges which at home are all around me
those edges which are mine.
Home is those rocky shorelines
those sandy beaches
that granite peninsula which sticks two fingers up to the atlantic and dares it to do it's worst!
That peninsula that thousands flock to in the summer for their two weeks of sun and sand
those tourists heading west that fill the roads with ladened cars pulling caravans and trailers
all packed full with people!
But this is only Paris.
The cliffs are just buildings
the sights and sounds are just those which every city makes
and despite my love for this place
this place is not mine
all this that man has made
devoid of any natural beauty
the natural beauty of the rocky peninsula that lives in my heart and in my soul
...and which now calls me home!
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