Cliff-Jumping Process Poem
Jumping intimidates – standing on the grassy rim of the sand cliffs, snatching glances at the distant islands across the Georgia Straight, Mount Washington’s white-capped peak visible in the background, the forested slopes of the North Shore mountains rising up from the bottom of the bay (ooh, vertigo), and the shining city bulging from the side of the horseshoe-shaped abyss into which we will fall. To jump here involves a freefall of 25 feet to the first sand-ledge and springing off with sufficient force propels you past a second rocky ledge into the near-vertical, 150 foot chute, golden sand cascading down with each fleeting contact as the jumper pushes off for more airtime, finally breaking into a run as the sand levels-out to the beach head far below. In 40 seconds the jumper descends a distance that takes forty 40 minutes to climb, clinging to roots, getting sand in the face, hair and eyes, traversing precariously across the paths that erosion had made rocky enough for a foothold: This was a daring person’s sport; dangerous, and for thrill seekers only. “You chicken?” my pal prods, pretending to push me, but I have banished him from my mind. If I concentrate hard enough, focusing on where I want to land and only on that one spot, I can make it appear to be a mere foot or two away, a small step, rather than a death-defying leap that will scream every molecule of air from your lungs before you even contact the cliff-face. I am not a chicken; I’m no flightless bird; I’m a cliff jumper. Anyway, I figured, if he can do this, so can I.
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(This poem was used as an example of changing relationships to place and memory. Structure = Sentence starts with: Gerund, Infinitive, Prepositional Phrase, Direct Speech, Conditional Sentence, SV/O, Sentence Adverbial)
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Windsweep Event poem
![](https://blogs.ubc.ca/ecopoetics/files/2017/07/ecopoetics-MoA-cliff-event-poem-300x200.jpg)
Photo Credit: Yuya Peco Takeda
Go to the edge. Lie face down
arms extended, gripping the bar.
The sand cliff is a hand glider
the nose is stuck in the beach below
the wings extend to the sky above.
Once you have reached the core
of the earth, turn over and look up.
Point the glider at the sky, with the
tail stuck in the sand banks below.
The hand glider comes unstuck.
Sail the alphabet of salty gusts.
Swallow up the limitless suns.
Either way, return with fire.
Speak, be lustful, be animal,
recall your minimal viable self
resemble an ancestor.
Become a stick figure and dance badly.
Get permission from ghosts to be afraid.
Give your ghosts the names of trees.
Fall to the ground like a leaf.
Rise up with the force of the tide.
Wear the moon like a hat.
Become the plunder of harvest.
Avoid Mars, curling past your shoulder.
Write a journey with firewater contrails.
Shower the sea with perpetuity.
![](https://blogs.ubc.ca/ecopoetics/files/2017/07/IMG_3830.JPG-300x225.jpeg)
Photo Credit: Olga Glukhovska
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Recompense of the Lately Arriving
birdwatcher on the
gratifying climes
of the junctions eye,
focusing sandbanks
at the distinct
climb-it – change
ushered across the
spring-armour climax
making visual the
Semioticians, the
forested
Straightness of the
Mountebank Washtubs
peals of scream
profaned uphill from
the backlog of the
slopes (Northerner,
Short-changing),
and
clinked from the
bougainvillea of the
horseshoe-shaped
bayou into which we
will
glasnost. To
filch hereinafter
bulking an ooh of 25
feet vested to the
first-home of civics
and
beaching off with
sugar-coated whales
side-glance
risking your past
second-half hopscotch
into the near-vertical,
150 foot drop
freelances feldspar,
good sand-wedge
descry down with
reruns return
some fleshiest
forcemeat as the
leer
breasted off for
more-muscular
footing, spot-rot,
not financially
rung into a cicada’s
chirp as the sandbank
container to the
west junctions aisle
farcically,
beneficially lead.
Sneaking back
up the sandbank
pussyfoot a stride
that levels-out
that
banked forty
year beachwear to
intone,
ghosted to
wants,
prettied secretion
in the junctions,
tastefully
and
talk preciously
across the yarn
that docked
face-creams hair-oil
roguishly enquiring
for an eyewitness:
This
hawked a darker
patina’s erratum;
dank,
and
masted headboard,
amalgamating to crazy
Dennis, what screeched me,
but
holds
him from my
sports. If I fall
ionize harder
tread on where I
hipped to throat
and
slipped it
incased to
every
property-casualty of
notable erosion
leaps; unmolified
no flimsy
air-interdiction:
the lure of a cliff-face.