The soft breeze shifts bringing the scent of brackish water to quavering nostrils.
Salt, oyster shells, and the wonderful smells where three waters of disparity come together. Inlet, bay, and waterway push and pull like struggling personas.
Strong fragrances of salt, fish, black sandy mud with tiny bits of shells, burnt diesel, and syrupy brown tannin from the trees. Large patches of reeds built up on mounds of mud and oyster shells, held in place by marsh grass and sea oats.
The oysters in their beds spit little streams as you pass by, beckoning, come closer. The little bearded bivalve’s mouths gaping to say we will shred your flesh if you give us a chance, wooing…step closer in the slippery slimy mud.
Small ***** sit by their holes in the black goo. The fiddlers march as though carrying a violin, their songs are clicking all the same pitch with no discernible harmony. They roll out tiny ***** as expert excavators leaving hole for escape from man and fowl.
The little birds, sandpipers scurry around- their skinny twig like legs moving faster than the eye can follow, putting one in front of the other, always moving forward never backing up making quick tight turns running from the water then chasing the bits of food as the foamy crooked line of surf pulls away.
Pausing to pick up a tiny speck of food too small to notice, her bony toes mark the mud writing in a cuneiform like language, probably a dead tongue not spoken for millennia. Beautiful shapes pointing, spelling out instruction and direction.
Lasting only seconds until the wind and water wipe the earthen canvas clean. A new page is opened tempting and luring the small writer with tidbits of food, enticing her to write line after line of an ongoing novel that will never be finished.