After the Storm

          It had been a long night of watching and waiting for the sleep that did not come. The window pane rattled to the winds command and leaves clawed at the glass insistently, begging to come in from the cold. The lighthouse set up its steady rhythm, a metronome of light sweeping the bay: blink, blink, then drowning darkness followed by a crescendo of light dimming again to nothing. I had listened to the plaintive cry of fog horns as the fishing boats felt their way home to safe harbour. I imagined the heaving decks, slick with sea water, men peering through eyes brimful of brine and sting, searching for their safe haven.
       Usually the indoor sounds of a storm sooth me, I am comforted by my own position of security, but the sound of that boat kept taking me out to be tossed on the sea and I could not rest knowing there were souls on board, possibly lost unable to rest. In my mind the hymn I had known so well from Sunday school came back to me: Oh hear us when we cry to thee, for those in peril on the sea, and I hummed it over and over, a pleading lullaby to the storm.
        When the storm finally blew herself out in the Reaping hours, I made myself a cup of tea and sat in silence feeling exhausted,defeated, but then the dawn broke and the chink of sun lit the far horizon bringing warmth and hope. All would be well. I put on my boots and walked down on to the ribbon of beach left by the lowering tide. A necklace of shells glinted on the hightide line interspersed with long ribbons of gelatinous kelp and mermaid hair stripped from its roots. My footfalls slid into miniature gritty dunes of sand as I trudged the shoreline, deep in my own daydreams, toward the spit of rocks at the end. Once there I needed to pick out a route amongst the seaweed mounds and rock pools to traverse the slippery rocks safely, but I cannot help searching for hidden treasure. It is easier to see in this flat morning light where sky is not mirrored on the water surface of the clear pools. The waving fronds of an undisturbed anemone, the sideways scuttle of a crab, the fluster of small fry are an illicit pleasure, but as I gain the top of the promontory my eyes once more seek the horizon. It is not as far off as it should be. The grey clouds hangs low in the sky, exhausted from their exploits, the space between them and sea shrouded in a visual white noise of fog resting on a calmed sheet of hammered steel sea. Like me, the oceans appears to be holding her breath after the storm, waiting to see what the day will bring