N’er will I let you go, my wee head of yarn. Your eyes are my eyes. We look across the sea like sailors of an ancient watch…quiet-like…while others chatter on. Little pluck of my heart, where do you find this reverence? Of all that is full force, unknown, and deserving of thanksgiving…
Gran-dada, carry me across the grass and set me within the waves. Hold tight to my coat tail. Gran, gran, the breath of the wave pushes against me. My eyes squinch like yours. Where does the sea go when it swallows, dada? Where does it sleep? Can it feel my fingers touch it, splat, splat, splat? Da da, da da, stallion manes and crashing hooves chase me down the sand! Nothing can catch me except you, dada.
Little fingers, will you become these worn, storied hands of mine? Will yours continue to touch the world like they do now? Is it merely a matter now of your being so close to its ground? Will they grow up and away, tracing the world in polished, kept and tidy ways? Do I yearn always to go to sea so that once again that which holds me up is a hand’s reach away? Wee head, come to me so that I may have something to hold against my hands again, to feel that some portion of the earth meets the resistance of my hands…hands sloughing off their callouses, losing their partnership with rope and wood and tar…now that I’m returned to land.
Spin, spin, spin me, gran-dada, the silly gull screeching such and so above. Taller…that I can see across the ocean’s edge. Where? How? Why does she breathe so loudly? What does she say? My finger pushes down on your shoulder here. My four fingers over here. My head and your head, hard and warm and curly together. Salted breaths, we squint with sea eyes. We see the sea, don’t we, dada?
Yes, my yarn, we see the sea.
