My nature 1

Awake early, I slip out of the sleeping house and walk down to the water
The path turns off the road and leads between bushes and reeds,
up the sand dune and parts it in the middle

Almost like a birth canal which opens up with the view of the sea, but it is the wrong way around
An inverted birth canal, going from dry to wet.

It is a flat stretch of sand to the water's edge, to the sea, to the waves.
A stretch that we run when we are with the children.
But I come down onto it from the dune alone, and turn to my right, to the lagoon.

The dry sand between my toes turn to wet and harder sand, and my footprints appear behind me.
The lagoon stretches out in front - calm, reflecting the early morning light.
The sun sends her rays out as scouts but still hides behind the mountain, waiting for her moment of glorious appearance.

It is a windless morning, and the only ripples are from the ducks that languidly move away from me, recognising me as an intruder upon the scene. I sit down on a sandy log, and watch them slowly return to where they were. With each stroke of their webbed feet more accepting of me as a part of their space.

I breathe the salty air into my lungs and close my eyes; listen to the thundering of the waves. A distant voice to the calmness of the lagoon water. When I open them again to look at the lagoon,
I can hear her calling:
Come play
swim
be
breathe
splash
I will cover you and wash you clean and make you new
You will leave me, but remember my touch

Suddenly the ducks, startled by something outside of my awareness, rise up with a collective squack and flap of wings, shattering the lagoon's call, and reminding me that the people in my house will start waking and be wanting breakfast.

I stand, indecisive, between domestic and wild.
Then pull my shirt over my head to follow the water's call