Dropping anchor for a while

I turn my head; I hear the plop; a little tern in free fall hits the streaming waters; ah, it’s found a wriggling, silvery fish. And there, an oyster catcher’s anxious, plaintive call; has it lost its nest and young to this high, sweeping tide? An old gull sits with watchful gaze upon its post and, with outstretched wings, flies away to caw and cry; another answers -  some strange language I do not know – maybe it’s about me, warning its mate that I’m around; I mean no harm.

I drop anchor, splosh, my little boat swings and tugs against the flooding tide.

Ah yes, I know this boat; she’s older than me and I first learned to row her when I was perhaps six or even seven. The smell that always was, is still there, salty, varnish-y – from swelling, clinkered planks, warmed by the summer’s sun. I position myself on the worn floorboards and sit and watch and listen. Downstream I see the mill, the sluice and far away, I’d like to feel, is civilisation. I love it, how I love it; alone with my thoughts and they’re not very deep because, because I’m distracted by the beauty. That sky – a wide and open sky, a painting above my head of varied hues and strangely textured clouds; there’s no hideous buildings here to block my view.

Yes, the tide is tugging, tugging, wanting to pull this craft away but the anchor proves too strong. I’m here to stay, that is, until I pull up anchor and this I feel reluctant to do.

The tide is turning, I must go .. soaked in the beauty, the grace of tide-drenched marshes and swathes of purple lavender; up anchor now and man the oars, off and away until another time …

Inside too … there’s stillness, the tugging tide subdued, I realise my Anchor will hold … another day….