"Sound (by Linda); revised" (by John)

The sea washes in, spiralling around the helix of my ears before pouring into the narrow canals. Seeping in and out, creeping, coming-and-going into the tiny bones in the centre of each ear. It changes at its source, so that the whoosh of each passing car becomes a wave. I do not think of it. I stroll and stop and move forward and drag back, and my breathing is the sea against the shore. I am as regular as the waves and as uncertain.

There is no hush at the beach, no sanctuary of light. Birds cry and call, swooping low, and the salty wind follows the sea, moves over the drums in my ears and my heart is a drum that beats sound into feeling, beats sound into sensation, beats sound into pulse. And the sound of feet leaving prints on sand is subtle, shifting, the sound of air as it moves. Disturbed, seaweed crunches like paper dry and discarded.

Foot prints dimple a path to the rocks in the centre where wind and water make large red bows around the ears and rush their way into the blood. Water thrashes - erratic, juvenile. One wave sighs, is then startled by the crash of another.

The uncounted pulse at the heart of the one still at the centre of the beach gives shape to the slow silent flow .