Cornwall art and culture from genius loci

Clies Stevens 'My Cornwall'

Clies is a regular contributor to Genius Loci and also writes for 'Cornish World'

WHEN I AM GONE
A strange title perhaps, but I will attempt to explain here in this bit of prose. I once worked in Peru, in the high copper belt above 10,000 feet and often after the stink of home made explosives had washed its dirty grey clouds of choking fumes over the landscape, and we waited to see the latest scar on the land I would long to smell the clean tang of fresh salt air coming straight off the Atlantic Ocean in the homeland I had left behind.
Has there ever been a visitor to my nation of Cornwall that has not been touched by its very beauty? How then can a native of this enigmatic land not be touched when he is doing what his forebears have done since before the times of Drake and Frobisher, those magnificent west country admirals who harried the Armada? Many Cornishman served in that fleet of ships, indeed Drake looked for crews from Plymouth but especially Cornwall.

So I say that when I am gone do not look for me at the cold grave, but instead I am the gentle warm breeze that wipes the tears from your soft cheek, the soft April rain that will start the growing things I loved so much to see; and the strange look the dogs give at a corner of field where we used to sit and I would tell them tales about Cornwall. See me in the blue cloud studded sky, and on the golden yellow sand where the grandchildren play.
Feel me in the soft summer breeze, Hear me as the wave crashes on the shore, and in the voice of the lonely gull.

Look for me on the hill tops where I walked across the wild moor land studded with those magnificent granite boulders I love so much, so silent and aloof. Hear me in the chuckle of the stream where Barney dog and Finnegan drank, and where I foolishly washed the gravel for tin like my forebears.

Look for me now as the cattle lie in the sun in those ancient fields, and in the fierce storm that crashes against the black cliffs of my land.

You can find me in all these places and more, in the magnificent blooms of the wayside as you go along the roads, in the keening call of the high soaring buzzard as he anxiously calls to his mate and young, listen to the poetry of the early morning and the stillness of the late summer evening as the sky is painted for you.
In all these places and more am I and will always be, just look and listen softly.
Clies Stevens

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