Seaweed

Seaweed

I close my eyes 

and breathe -

smell the seaweed

strewn across the sand,

hauntingly familiar,

the mind-madness

momentarily, magically 

arrested.

Old memories

capture me

enrapture me

and I am free

to wander

through old dreams.

Child, girl, woman

in moments of bliss

on English days.

Cold seas, 

shells and seaweed.

Or the summer smell
of chalky country lanes - 

of hot tar melting

on the road, shimmering 

like oily water in the sun - 

or a meadow,

cowslips and cowpats 

sharing the space.

As I raise my face

in this foreign land 

looking for release, 

the smell of  seaweed 

more evocative than any perfume

rescues me.

It winds itself around me, 

lingering, like longing does.

Healing.

Senses saturated,

I drift away.

The generous sea

sends me home 

on scented waves of salt.