Island Bound

I grew up on this tiny little island. I could have done it elsewhere. The growing up, that is. But I am bound by more than water.

There are times when I wonder if we have anything in common. But, we do.

We both give the impression of floating. Of being free, and untethered. In truth, we are immovable.

I grew up on this tiny little island, while it grew around me. It nourished its trees so they would be mature enough when the time came to whisper that I should not leave. It gave me mountains as a refuge, to keep me from the shore. When the rain became too much, and others took flight, it conjured its earthy scent to ground me.

I don't know how it does that, but its very soil is in it. Is in me. I imagine its wetness held in the palm of someone gone before, whose blood still courses through mine. He is truly at one with it now. But that is irrevocable, and for all this land's efforts, I still resist that fate.

I am from a place where we sing laments that despair at the necessity of leaving. Those that have do the same in foreign places. Our voices meet somewhere over the Atlantic. We keen on the waves. We remember. And we yearn.