I woke up to gray skies melting towards a glowing dusk, the day was already old. The warm wind wakes the frozen ground and calls me down; the sea is back in my hair and the air tastes of salt and storms to come. Warm skin smells like lily of the valley and I am clean clean clean once more
Spring is beginning to come round again, at least here by the sea, now that I'm out of the mountains for a while. I'm back home for a quick vacation, of the mind and of the heart- it's surprising how much coming home can mean; how much it brings back what once was.
The air felt like spring today, even though it’s still cold. Watching tendrils of steam curl off my shoulders still hot from the bath, cut by the breeze. The skunk was so sweet for something so smelly. It’s not worth being lonely any longer.
Returning to school in a tumble of snow and bags can be disorienting. The snow is up to my knees and sometimes the ice trips you up but you can't fall because you'd be late to class and there is no time to lose.
Luckily, I have your pretty face to distract me. Have you ever seen such beautiful eyes? I think maybe the sea got a little jealous and jumped in there herself. Not that I can blame her. If I could swim in your eyes forever, I would too.
The winds came and with them a quiet. The constant static of the drops hitting tin roofs formed a sort of white noise that made thought unnecessary. She knew she had to leave
Maybe I'll fill up with rain and it won't matter whether I'm wearing boots or not.
This strange saltwater rain- and then I'll always carry the ocean in my curls.
Woke this morning before the blackbird sang to walk by the sea no soul in sight just the wet on the grass and clouds pressing close. Summer shifts the winds and blows salt through my hair, so happy to be free she flirts and teases and weeps for joy. My hair curls in the damp, tossed and tumbled and blown awry, I must find a hat before the sun comes back.
Went to school looking like a wild child, the smell of the ocean on my skin. The day calls for lavender tea and a spot in the corner chair with pages to turn. Today I'm dreaming of loves lost at sea and girls with tousled curls who wait in white in the cellophane rain, and soldiers with straight backs and bright eyes who smell of tobacco and salt air.
I see my house clearly in my mind.
The weathered furniture rescued from flea markets, given love and a new coat of paint
Mirrors and shelves and shelves and shelves of books, bits of driftwood and old pictures- bottles found and filled with the tiniest shards of smooth sea glass
Clocks and papers and shells and dried flowers in vases- a perfume that smells like home and the salt air
And white curtains that catch the wind and dance for joy of movement
And my room: with the window and the desk and the chair so certain, I know already I know. The bright light and the fall of the pen and the remains of breakfast in the corner. Both clutter and space and full, soft white light. And the birds call outside my open window, my beautiful paint-peeling window.
My house visits me in waking dreams- does yours?
Hello there rain, I suppose you had to come back sometime didn't you?
Here you are an old man who likes to keep the sun abed, but in lilting tilting french you are a young girl eager to make the world grow.
I don't know which of you I like better-
The you who cautions me warm and safe back to my bed and lets me curl up with silky black coffee
Or the you who takes my chin and tilts it up with loving fingers so that my face is awash with the new
Maybe I just love you
P.s. The mists are back. Please guide the ships home to harbour and don't let the one crash into the jetty like last time.
it rained today and the library leaked. my mind leaked too a little, but the windows sprang open and the wind carried the sea. the downpour was incredible, the world turned white from pelting rain. did you know that the Earth's rotation slows a little each year from Dust in the atmosphere? one day it will stop entirely. we would spend six months in darkness and six months in light. from something as tiny as specks of Dust.
I ran up to the third floor of the school today and climbed out the window onto the roof. you can see the sea and the smell hit me harder than the droplets of rain and the wind caught my hair and tried to run away with it. the clouds tossed and turned but I hid behind the bell tower and nobody saw me in the midst of the tempest. it was easing up out over the water and patchy sunlight struck the waves, sending up a brilliant, blinding light. I was safe until the sun struck me. then I got down and went to class.
Where did the days go? They danced away on pretty patterned feet and you and me we watched them turn into thin pink clouds on the horizon that day the stars came down.
We've grown older you and I and the pretty spiral shells under the tree are cracked with cold but in the corner of the sky is that piece of sparkly stone you gave me still shining shining shining.
You and me we'll dance through this new year and the boats way out at sea will slip back to us across the ice before we sleep so we'll always know.
the fog rolled in tonight. driving along the roads by the shore, it was so thick you could knit a blanket from it. "thick enough for stew" grandma would say. familiar sights and places became strange and twisted, wrapped up in ghostly grey tendrils of mist.
on the road home, headlights from cars carried miles in the fog, illuminating the cloud from within. but once the car passed, it was just me and the mist.
in a small coastal town, when the mists come, it's no joke. everything shuts down- everyone goes inside. inside it's bright and cheerful against the chill, but once you step out, you wish you hadn't. things crawl in from the sea. you can never see them- they're good at staying only in the corners of your eye- but you feel them there. things that aren't meant to be touched. they brush up against you when the mists come in.
i had to jump over the threshold with both feet so the sprites wouldn't catch hold of the foot left behind and sneak a ride into the house to cause trouble. you never know on nights like these...
Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.
