Letting go

I let Waterhorse go to the sea (last week), in a solitary reunion with its environment. It could have been a place of great importance. A great ship landing...an explorer's visit...or even a place of devastation. Instead I chose the spot where the waste water spills into the cove. A calm space where fattened baby sea gulls drift in the shelter of artificial constructs. The launch had none of the grace that I envisioned, that is until the sea claimed it again. The launch was simply a crash of dry seaweed upon the water's surface. Nothing more than a swift drop. The sea first pushed it in before slowly unraveling its woven form, reshaping it into ribbons that again took on life. The ribbons of kelp were now bleached from the sun, and the salt now brought to its surface.

In Hawai'i they say if a lei is returned, so will you-so I am not sure what to make of the drastic movement that pushed the piece under the false stone that covered the waste water pipe until it was slowly turned and unraveled before being sucked out to sea in dramatic swirls of life intermixed with steel grey and punctuated with waste. The young gulls continued to test their wings against incoming gusts of wind. Gradually the wind threw rain like thorns in my side. I walked in then, thinking my small ceremony complete. Walking the trail of cod back one last time to the shelter of home.