At the Edge of the Day

By late afternoon the coastline begins to gather an audience. Not for a scheduled event or a predictable performance, but for something that has happened here long before roads, viewpoints and footprints found their way to the headland. People stand quietly along the edge of the land, their attention drawn seaward. Dark rock beneath them. Wind in the air. The Atlantic continuing its conversation with the coastline.

As the light lowers, small figures become silhouettes against an immense rise of water and spray, momentarily illuminated by the sun behind it. Golden light passes through the airborne water while the darker cliffs hold their place around it. The eye moves naturally between the observers and the observed, each defining the other.

Some experiences ask nothing of us except that we stop and pay attention.