“Sea”
Posted on 29. Nov, 2009 by New Forum in New Forum, Poetry
Sea
By Eleanor Ward
I thought I had caught it once,
darting into the wave
as we walked along old concrete sea walls
while the sea was the same colour as the rain clouds,
grey foam that had leaked through new trainers.
I grabbed at it, salt water on my hair
turning the French braids my Grandmother had worked
so hard on, into frizzy, pointed plats with wet ends.
Hands in my pockets,
I thought I had it, wrapped around my little finger;
thought I could bring it, the air, the sand, the water
back to London with me, that it would survive in the city,
but the city’s rain watered it down
until the last drop evaporated and it was gone again.
For years its deep pull,
the tide washing up my nose
and hooking me like the fish, a sharp and sure pull,
was forgotten and lost.
Curious, I searched it out like an addiction,
sat with my feet in it,
the drug seeping into my pores.
I had it all – the dolphins one metre away on Australian sands,
starfishes stuck on boating lakes in the North Sea.
Bittersweet saltwater kisses; tide soaked beaches.
When I was thirteen I saw someone painting
over the single glazed windows that encased
us children on this ward. A vivid blue outlined in black,
fishes composed of circles and triangles.
Every morning I had a sunny blue on my face
I could almost touch it,
even while they took a needle out and stole,
blood from children – my own deep red sea.
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