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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. 

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