Lingering stress, and regret, drove me to the shore last Thursday. As I sat at a small round plastic table, taking too long over a coffee and fixated on the ocean, two lines of a poem I learned in school, maybe sixty years ago, swirled around in my head.
“I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head.” Willian Butler Yeats, in his short poem, hooks a berry to a thread on a stick and catches a little silver trout. As he sets a fire, the fish becomes a glimmering girl with apple blossom in her hair. She calls him by his name and runs into the air.
The poet pursues the girl for the rest of his life, ” … and kiss her lips and take her hands”. His quest is fruitless.
My hazel wood was a left turn along the beach, an area I had not walked before. The sun was sinking, the tide retreating, leaving acres of unwalked flat damp sand. The cliffs to my left reflected a myriad of hues from the evening sun.
I walked until the stone and waves said, “no further”, and turned to watch the colours in the sea and cliffs, separated by the plain dark sand.
In the middle distance, I saw a woman with what looked like a fishing rod over her shoulder.
As I drew closer to her, she angled the rod down to the sand, and I could see it was a rake with a narrow comb. She had a single white feather tucked into a bun in her hair.
She drew a perfect circle in the sand, using her body as the centre, and then moved 5 metres to begin a second circle.
“And this is?”, I asked. “I am a sand artist, I create works of art on beaches”, she replied.
“Let me guess, you have a drone in your bag, and when you finish you launch the drone to capture your canvas from above?”
“Exactly,” she smiled, “if you want to stay around you can watch the footage.”
She told me that she was Rachel Smiamh from Wales and she had travelled here on her own. She invited me to photograph her as she worked. It was a pity I only had my phone with me.
When she finished, Rachel flew her drone with amazing skill and we watched the dazzling footage together.
“I have been making these sand scapes for many years with my partner,” she told me.
“Look me up on Instagram.”
“Two years ago,” Rachel continued, “We had just completed a big piece on the beach, and Marc walked into the sea to get a different perspective.”
“He never came back.”
Neither of us could hide our emotions.
Rachel reached into her hair, and handed me the white feather, “this will keep her closer to you.”
That s very beautiful Des.
That s very beautiful Des.
A Reason, A Season, A Lifetime: Brian A. “Drew” Chalker.
Kismet