The Sun was hot on my back and arms,
The air was hot dry cotton in my lungs,
But, I was young, and lived for the feel
Of the offshore wind,
Hearing the cries of the free fishers,
The high gulls!
All the smells were there,
In those summers by the sea,
And well I remember
The sharp, hot smells,
Of creosote, tar, and pine,
When the wind turned
Blowing from the land behind.
How can I tell you of that smell?
You know tar, and creosote, and pine,
But, blended with the sea?
The smell of heat, and water, and salt, and
Fish under the water and the birds above it?
Take me blind and deaf to the sea and I'll know it,
By the smells.
Blood is most salt water, they say,
It must be so,
Because my blood beats and flows
With some distant surge of the sea against the shore.
I am calm away from the sea,
But, calmer still beside it...
My mind and soul soars, rolls, bounces...
And runs barefoot,
Through the hot sand,
Each time I come home to the shore.
Donovan Baldwin
The Advocate, June-July 1996
