The child climbed the gangplank,
my small fingers clutched the mahogany rail.
I waved ribbons of disquiet from the deck,
fear stabbing my uncharted ribs,
while white-gloved sailors saluted our departure.
In a moment my world disappeared in the seascape
of tumbled swell of fluttering hands of farewell.

I found myself walking Lowry’s grey streets,
the sun locked away within my chest,
an indistinct language playing in my ears.
As my feet hit cold concrete schoolyards
I remembered the warm sands of the Guinchu between my toes,
Atlantic-flecked waves breaking my lungs,
but infant scenes fast faded into albums of separation.

Little did I think, in my childish self-centred way,
of the wrench of grief in my parents’ hearts,
of my father leaving the land of his childhood
and the cork forests of the Alentejo
bought and tended by his forefathers.
Nor realize how my mother’s laughter would be discarded
to the sunshine and the glistening sea.

Years later sunbeam memories filtered through
on seeing the semi-circled Nice shoreline,
redolent of the crescent bay of Estoril.
Streams of sunlight burnt open long-forgotten narratives,
like dusting off the cover of an old book.
The blistering cobblestones of the Cours Saleya
reawakening an imprint of sensations of distant Portugal.

Estoril

Nice