Beneath rain clouds, at noon, on some sunny day, underneath the covering of
waterlogged clays, as droplets clash and spray; fray and batter against the worn and
torn- it can be the unearthing of an oyster buried deep in the mud, and the discovery
of a pearl seeped with salt ocean calm.
There remains the distant echo of tides lost and found, words knitted together with
those same tender hands, which sewed the yellow dress that frails and protests against
the bellowing wind, faded now with the passage of time.
Water seeps through gaps as mother and daughter clumsily embrace, a meeting made
awkward by an unspoken truce that shimmers as bright as an underground ravine.
Mouths struggle to make letters audible sounds, and ears fear what pictures such
utterances can reveal.
“Your letter in my pocket- it’s probably sodden now,” the younger woman is resigned
to say, always, as a silent apology to whatever the weather feels is gay.
The older woman sighs a lengthy release, which hangs in the air, before it is dispelled
by the raindrops that fall steadily across the expanse that exists, as the women stand
apart. For a brief moment anyway, the passing storm acts as a buffer for emotions
waiting to be expressed. Persistent drumming on their skin quickly makes soft limbs
as numb as a laden heart.
Umbrellas were forgotten, like the countless birthdays and anniversaries, since the
day had seemed so good and fair: as fair as the cornflower blue sky, and as good as
the white doves that had fluttered by.
Forgotten but undoubtedly mourned is almost worse than remembered and
purposefully evaded. Resilience, as the women wait for the shower to pass, can be
traced from the knotted brow of the mother to the bitten lip of the daughter.
The silence stretches beyond the couple: to the estuary, from which children loved to
cast their nets, with such initial excitement as they hoped for a creature more exotic
than seaweed. Deserted, as girls shrieked to the warmth of a kitchen stove, and boys
ran giggling to the shelter of secret caves.
“You used to play here as a girl.” Says the one who used to watch and wait- for the
downpour, for the little girl with red ribbons in her hair to run and hide in her
mother’s arms. “Do you remember? Do you remember ripping that yellow dress you
loved so much on those rocks beyond the cliff…