Beneath the Laughing Gulls

"The important thing in life is to let the years carry us along." Federico Garcia Lorca, Yerma"

This evening I press my ear to your chest,

hear the ocean's waves and laughing gulls

that reside inside, distant laughter of children

you've made fast friends, your voice

calling "Mother, come look!"

Close my eyes, see you walk a mermaid's path,

white frothy sea foam and iridescent bubbles

slowly fade and pop as morning's surf recedes,

tears glistening as you mourn their death.

Wrap myself around you, whelk like,

my shell far too fragile for true protection.

Realize tears are as important as laughter

yet my heart bangs along the shore,

chipped and worn, fighting for a journey

resembling my dreams perhaps more than yours.

And there's the fissure as you turn

and take the covers with you surely as decisively

as the tide reclaims what is hers.  Always.

So, I settle upon the porch, chastised a bit,

yet revel in the sounds I've heard,

know you are alive and growing,

tumbling along life's shoreline

beneath the laughing gulls.

by Margaret Bednar, March 29, 2018