A hero, on the beach, with his granddaughter.
My granddaughter roams, barefoot,
on pooled and seaweed-slippy rocks,
gathering mussels, cockles,
razor clams and small crabs
in a hessian sack, ready for the meal
I promised her.
The pot already boils
on the driftwood fire I made earlier,
hunkered between boulders,
the sea quieted,
the wind calmed,
the voices in my head fogged.
I watch child and tide, one for
carelessness, the other for craftiness.
Catching on the salt air, smoke from the cooking fires,
the hum-busy of mothers at the washing place.
I look out distant
to the pounding sea,
grey relentless energy,
shifting presence
breaking rainbowed
on tireless hidden reefs...
...see, through light's bendings,
shades of my long-ago crew
sailing guideless, dark-blind
through sheet-tearing tempest
or rowing backbroken on
oily, becalmed waters,
cracking out 'land ho'
through parched lips,
gapped and scurvied gums,
pale against weather-struck faces,
hard-pulling with saltcracked hands
against an outgoing tide...
my eyes fill, spill from the corners,
trickle to salt-lie on my lips.
“Why are you crying, grandad?”
the child asks. Unnoticed,
she has beaten the tide in
its race to meet me.
I tell her I'm not really;
this is something which happens
sometimes to men who are old and tired.
“But you're not old, grandad,”
her faith in my immortality unshakeable.
“So why are you crying?”
...and I tell her that
their spring is not ours,
their winter dying not the same,
their motion in our space and time
suspended...
But she is busy
showing me the contents
of her forage sack,
asking, “Is the fire on?
Can we cook these now?”
We hold hands on the way back -
I sense her more careful of me,
as if something settled in her world
has moved slightly, unexpectedly.
I'm pleased to get out of the wind,
away from the sight of open sea,
my vision limited to the fire,
the roil of water in the pot,
my granddaughter watching,
waiting her portion.
© Paul Mein 20/10/14
.jpg)
