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Sea of White

Clusters satisfied by the sun and

Rain, burst open across the field

To create the sea of white.

Each wave tended by its keeper,

bending, dark, singing  songs of

the tired and weary as their

Heads bobbed, up, down, up, down.

As a child, the warm earth under the white

Waves was my play spot. The keepers

Tended me and Daisy as they pulled

The foam, stuffed it in coarse burlap sacks

Strapped to their backs.  When the sun

Touched the top of the split rail fence,

we sprawled under the shade,

like the chosen twelve around the last table.

I tried, as the twelve, to put order to what was

Before me.   Too young, too simple.

As my hem touched the warm ground,  I

Was forbidden to play in the white sea.

Daisy no longer my childhood friend

But Maid to her Mistress and our childhood

Chatter grew up as I became my mother.

Standing on the hill above the white sea, I

Watched papa watch the waves, as the keepers

Removed the foam, and pondered his promise.

I would captain the white sea, soon, for

My time had been appointed.   Tend the keepers

Of the sea and the land as your little one and it

Will fill you with strength, pride, grit. 

Papa did not feel the slight stirring of the air

On this day of promise, but did I.  His world as

Clear as his conscious, but not I.  The tending

Of my childhood was not consumed by the

Length of my skirt or the drawing room

Speeches.  It was a tender painting of

Shared laughter, cornbread, grass and

Shade on a hot summer day when the

need of freedom  was not recognized by

Two children in a sea of white.