There is a poetry to the smells of Spring and the mixed bundles that are Man. Father smells of pemmican, tobacco and pewter. Mother of lavender, sheep tallow and pewter. Sisters and brothers of soil, tallow rendered of lamb-fat and pewter. It is two hundred steps up the hill, and another two hundred past the walkway stones, up the road until the Bay wind blows free of Man. It is only the sea and beyond the sound of the sea in a rush of constant song. Better than any song that comes from the Congregational Meeting on our day of worship. Better than the songs father sings after drinking his rum. Better than Mother’s song when we lay in fever or sorrow or the pain of day. My young hand in hers.

Her hands calloused from the loom and the hot tallow.

My walking rod leads me away and all up to the rise by the stones of the bluff where I can hear the soundings of small fog cannon and sea birds circling over my head. The gulls are sent by our God to bring messages, says Mother, one must try to hear without expectation.

To breathe. To express in solitude.