1. 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.
2. The Pearl Makes Three
They
journeyed, my friends.
Their
love grew tall like the high tide
marked
by green on a pier wall.
They
sailed onwards, married over mileage,
threw
their net wide and
then
dropped anchor in a place they
decided
to be.
Then
suddenly (it seemed) The Bird and the Sea
were
nearly a three.
Here
they are, gazing out from
the
bank of a highland loch
and
taking stock before the real adventure begins.
They
could speak grandfather’s chins, choose brown or blue eyes,
debate
silly names and remember their childhood times.
Nursery
rhymes were sung to them only yesterday.
All
the time, taking shape and listening is their little stowaway.
Under
the waves of her heartbeat, still
resting
in its bay and connected by a glittering
sliver of a strand
Perfectly
formed but not quite ready to unfurl
is an
ocean pearl.
A tiny
carbonite thing, strengthened already
by concentric
layers: round like her
belly
that burgeons against her clothes.
Tough,
like your father and
harboured
by the day-to-day swell.
Just
one hop away in time
from
iridescence: she has that as well.
This
friend of mine, the magnificent girl:
the
Mother of Pearl.
3. Treasure
Born into water: that was the plan.
Magically you’d twirl out of her and spore into the world.
You’d head in, head-first and unfurl from an oyster;
not a pearl but some perfect little thing we’d cried about
even thinking about.
But you were a stubborn sort of little thing
and in the end like an oyster unwilling to be shucked
we had to pluck you out.
You didn’t fancy a swim; you didn’t want out of your air pocket just
yet.
Like I was
in our scarlet-walled home,
you were comfy and warm and membraned.
To remain was to be like a limpet, a squatter in a chill-out womb.
For you, now was a bit too soon.
But with ebbs and pangs, held hands and grit
they managed to unclamp you from inside.
Wide-eyed, you
were hauled ashore with the tide.
The catch of the day, fished out
and blinking into glare.
Hook, line and sinker,
you were there.
You’d already a flair for the dramatic
in birth, a head full of hair.
The glorious girth and
substantial weight was worth the
substantial wait.
The little stowaway is no more: he’s above board now,
he’s a flag at full-mast and now
somehow he’s even there in the past.
Which has been rewritten now.
Something that’s always been here:
the sound of familiar waves in a conch shell
held to your ear.
Now echoes tell the future and the horizon roves close to the shore,
you're the smooth
jewelled edges of once-sharp glass.
You’re home now and like the untamed
sea
grass, you’ll spread out and grow.
Row row row your little boat all over, Syd.
Sail far, go off-grid and look up at the
birds and the moon and the stars.
You’re the best thing they did,
in truth and by far.
You can swim but you can fly as well.
The bird gave you feathery wings so you can soar
and your dad is the level ocean floor.
So dive down to the seabed, drop an
anchor for later
and then you can fly across the equator
until you reach something interstellar.
Go on adventures, but go home and tell her.
Tell him and tell us everything and
we’ll laugh and we'll tell you what we did in our day.
And your whatever is their whatever.
Because for as far as forever can be measured,
you’ll be their little bit of dug-up gold:
a thing more precious than any treasure
and worth more than any lottery
that has ever been won. By anyone.
Their little pearl, their sea-bird,
their Syd, their son.
(This is not the end)