Word in the Hand

  Matthew 10 Don't be afraid. Aren't two sparrows sold for only a penny? But your Father knows when any one of them falls to the ground. Even the hairs on your head are counted. At the crossroads on Holy Island there is a cafe, Massie's, an islander cafe; family-run for generations. The menu recognises the needs of the traveller; comfortable, warm, not too posh;  with hot drinks in mugs, tasty sandwiches and toasted teacakes. For the good weather, the hardened pilgrim or those with dogs there is a garden area with with a thick privet hedge on one side. In the hedge live the Massie sparrows; hundreds of them; generations of them from the palest fluffy grey of the fluttering fledglings to the striking bronze filigree of the patriarch males. These feathered families live just as the human islanders do; out of season gathering together for warmth, finding food where they can, holding onto reserves of energy to survive the ceaseless easterly...

Salt-laden breezes carry gulls' cries and seals' songs Mermaid lullabyes in a seathrift cradle Storm built walls of foamy ocean Seahome calls. Tucked against the length of her, the coble’s oar shivers Remembering the thrum of the waves; windblown hair Tension of muscle over bone; wood against iron Boat; body - one. Spectral sailors cry and call in vain; whilst in the graveyard The wild sea woman cast in stone, can do no more trapped now, in Gothic grandeur ‘Save Our Souls’. Grace Horsley Darling (24 November 1815 – 20 October 1842)  the daughter of a lighthouse keeper who,aged just 23, along with her father, saved 13 people from the wreck of the SS Forfarshire. Buried, within yards of the sea, in St Aidan's Churchyard, Bamburgh, Northumberland - we can all be heroes response to the Round Robin Photo Challenge http://roundrobinphoto.blogspot.com/2010/08/round-robin-challenge-fenced-in.html