Sound of freedoms

The sea was anxious;

waves jumped and jostled; crowded fretfully
before a cold east wind that streamed with unseemly haste.

The tide being low
I walked across the foreshore,
stepping through the tangled seaweed braids and
round the pits and pools bait digging left behind.

Then I was there,
standing at the water's edge,
offering the kayak to the waves running thin
across the shallow ledge of low tide strand.

A push, a shove and (scraping momentarily)
we enter in another world.

Deeper water shoulders against me;
Waves rise from nowhere, scoop me forwards
slide under me, spill themselves around me.
The east wind whistles through metallic teeth
and the sea smell is sharp and raw
at the back of my nostrils.

In and out the paddle plunges,
knifing the deep green ocean's wave-wriggled flesh,
and leaving long liquid scripts spinning
on the shining parchment of the sea.

Every stroke an effort
through the changing hills and valleys
of this mobile world.

Out across the river mouth,
past the beacons standing sentinel
and over to the empty marshes shining in their
ebb tide nakedness.

The mud is bright in the watery sun,
clothed only with the
delicate geometries
of seabird footprints.

And here, utterly alone,
utterly at peace
I listen to the call of birds against the hissing wind
and faint cacophany of waves;
the sound of freedoms I can scarcely comprehend.


(c) A McN