The Breeze

The ocean around that island

where she lived seldom calmed down.

The island itself was almost never visible

to any living eye, except perhaps

to those November birds on their way to winters.

It was always misted over with fine salt spray.

It was a tiny island of sand,

a little patch of grassy earth and

that old, twisted and gnarled oak,

Which had no reason to be there, but still was!

She was thankful for it though,

for its branches were her home.

Every morning she would leave just at dawn

to visit the little kids on an island a few hours away.

Just for a few minutes she remained there

basking and warming in the midday sun,

before she turned and returned

back to her own oak and her own island.

It seldom rained where the kids lived,

but every day they smelt its hope in those minutes.

For every day, the breeze would collect

the heady petrichor off her salt dampened

patch of oaken grassy earth, and fly it across
those ocean hours, a beacon of a promise to be kept.