The Bird and the Sea

The Bird and the Sea

Like a migrating bird, she flew to the city one winter.

One more adventure she thought,

One more flight path to valiantly venture.

There was cooking and cleaning with meaning, not much money

Isn’t it funny?

A jarful of ordinary days and fleeting nights have somehow patch-worked themselves into a precious memory.

In time, she settled.

Made a nest.

Embellished it with trinkets and the rest.

Red walls and chipped laminate floors.

Revelries, near-misses and flags on the doors.

Shiny pint glasses lifted from pubs; we were light-fingered and light-souled.

And we joked of growing old together.

And then the coastline came inland for a visit.

Almost like a tidal swell.

I liked him as well.  

He was good enough;

Not just for anyone but

for her. Which is no mean feat.

After all, he had me to defeat.

Then I saw the bird and the sea become one.

Happiness seemed like just something to be done; the in-thing.

You’d think it would bother me: losing my sidekick, my love, my partner in crime.

But in time the coastline also became mine.

A familiar friend within the space of a mere weekend.

And so a funny kind of existence began to become.

My friend found a sea view without realising she’d needed one.

Then looking out of the window became a journey.

Venturing further, the coast and the sea and me

went our separate ways but kept hold of the twine that had sewn our time so defiantly together.

Until another winter years later, on a river,

the dirty, snaking path back to our beginning;

he said he’d always be with her.