Lyn Oliver- Journey to Kanomi

Found Object:

A small piece of coral resmbling a chicken foot or a man

Rolling, swirling, whooshing; washing machine twirling. Over over over.

Breaking from the parent coral stem the first searing trauma. Detached, separate, alone and isolated after the piercing pain.

Wounded, helpless in the endless ocean. The jagged amputation throbbing mercilessly in the roiling undercurrents.

So long, so long enduring agonising separation. And then gradually, imperceptibly initially, then unbelievably - a softening, a rounding of splintered edges - smoothing of trauma.

Freedom from totally absorbing, aching anguish. I sink to the deep calm of lower waters, where all is dark and colourless fish trawl the depths like vacuums.

Even here some current thrusts me upwards and I circle spying vivid blue and yellow fishes. Like glass they sparkle. Like tinsel they shimmer before me. Attached to the parent branch they swam above me, now I gyrate with them. Movement and progress I never thought to exercise.

Translucent pouches, tentacles trailing, expansive jelly fish waft around me. Mesmerised I hurtle above, caught in spiralling waves.

Waves, waves breaking shorewards. My watery wandering abruptly halts. Spat and cast on yellow sand, to lie and bake, churned at high tide. Creamier and smoother as days progress.

And then she picks me. "Chicken's foot", "little man": meaningless descriptions. How can I resemble what I am not? I'm the severed branch, the broken stem - the smoothed and bleached remnant.

Caressed in her hand, I sense she pleasures in my sea softened contours.

I steel myself to hope, to believe she will return to me my independence, interdependence, on the shore. Where waves will lap and lick and gnaw me further as I ease into the sand; my rest and calling dearly gained through trauma, parting and tumultuous tossing through the torrents.

I will lie in the sun, ride in the tide and dig deeper in the salt-milled sand; my hard won habitat