Tuesday 13 December 2011

Mighbrow: Ocean Bound

I wrote this after watching a display of love and indifference (father and daughter respectively) on a Corsican beach. Di and I don't have children and are therefore ignorant of the parental pull. We are however proud and pitifully inadequate godparents to five quirky kids (Tats/Zach/Greg/Katie/Olivia) and have witnessed the inevitable acquiescence that all parents must endure for their offspring. There's a sanguine sadness mixed with the envy and admiration as you witness your once feckless mates disappear under the heavy coat of responsibility, only to reappear (all too occasionally) with the knackered but giddy grin that all young parents sport.
There always seems to be an undercurrent of anxiety; a recognition that if they look away
they might miss something and somehow lose grip of what is essential but unnamable.
A sadness too therefore in the recognition that time can't be stilled; 
that you can hold but never truly keep...

Ocean Bound

And the father holds the daughter on the beach
Knowing that he’ll never forget
And that she’ll never remember

She moves to the rocks
Just out of reach

He thinks of sunsets and of late November
Hearing the words
Ocean bound:
“I will be nice, I will be kind
I will hold other folk in mind”

Is her song for him?

She has already forgotten that he’s there

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