Coming home

Wrap me up in oyster sky.

Set my feet on cooling velvet green.

Pickle me in the salted breeze.

I am home.

Back to this downy place,

Where starlings gather in a flurry to greet me,

Surging low and swirling,

Returned to roost.

Where silence unfolds, 

And calls me to the estuary shore.

Where a sudden gust of westerly wind

Catches my breath, 

And takes my words away.

No part of me is untouched here -

On these marshy flats,

Where the damp earth hums.

Now at dusk,

by the black water,

I am alone.

Waves, ripple and bathe my tired body.

Tonight I will sleep soundly on a bed of moss and air.