They say water holds memory

They say water holds memory

 

He began in the salt-watered reflection where 

His father saw his heart knotted like rope in his Mother's eyes.

She who had mended fishing nets,

Dorset-dumpling-legs dangling gaily over the harbour wall at West Bay.

He, an evacuee from the banks of the Thames.

 

She began in the milky reflection where

Her father saw his heart skipping like a shiny 12" Vinyl in her Mother's eyes.

She who had sold the sounds of the seventies

From behind the counter in Minehead's Woolworths.

He, a dairy-hand of Somerset's green pastures.

 

She, and she, began in the murky reflection where

Their father saw his heart swirled like a paint-water jar in their Mother's eyes.

She who had studied nudes at the college along Bridgwater Bay

In the early stages of a Foundation Degree.

He, a mature student, a wood-turner by trade.

 

The years they pass

But the waters remain, glinting within,

Mixed by the tumultuous tides and tribulations of life,

Ruminated in stomachs, milked,

And brushed across canvases by our artistic children.

 

Your parents have been held by the heavenly fleet of Dorset for several years now,

Their ashes adorn the fishing nets like crustaceans, forever together in the seas off West Bay,

Knotted together by 8 offspring shared,

Salt-water flowing through salt-water, 

Grandchildren and great grandchildren, on shores as far flung as Canada.

 

My parents still find solace in the dewy-grassed mornings of the Quantocks,

Milky tea and non-mains water, a country life

Where their rurality keeps them held

In classic memory, just like the music and shops of old.

Life flowing slowly like the drought-pained brook

That (more occasionally of late) sweeps a-flood along their cash-strapped lane.

All the more reason to stay in by the fire, cosy.

 

And us?

Well, our paint-water jars were poured down the sink 11 years ago now,

But our streams of consciousness still flow through our creative waters,

Through YOU girls,

And back through me, here,

Right down to our shared sea.

 

They say water holds memory.

A Wensley

18.11.2025