Fisherwomen
on the Beach
circa early 1900s (?)
They are grouped
together like a hoard of shells, cupped in a large sand-polished palm of some
unseen hand as if precious and rare. Their dresses and headscarves, the pale pure
colours of which heighten the already blinding sea of sunlight, flap casually
and chicly like crisp, starched wings, resonating the cool power of the coast's
wavering drafts. Pouring in from the side the women bare themselves as a subtle
barrier between us and the indecisive wet world beyond. Their detached
indifference conflicts with their foreground presence, and they do not return
our gaze. With heads bent they swim in their own separate worlds; they
recede from us in a slow, sloping decline towards the base of the shore,
forming a slight pull or figurative trail for us to consider.
Our eye has little
choice but to notice that floppy moss-green notebook (from which a wind-swept
page is about to be flicked over) or the braided wicker basket,
sun-bleached with the years and determined to serve at least as many more. We
see the freckled patterns of flowers and dots; the sagging linen pouch clutching
the man's aged hips, and the steady furrow of his brow; and the plain sails,
turgid with air and un-yielding strength, cradling the tossing winds. Raking
the surface the waves pile over one another, frothing and spitting, creating a
pulp that, if not for its translucency, assumes a kind of a salty marmalade - one
thickly spread over a doughy base of clams and corals and cast-down creatures. And,
just as the women are with their own thoughts, it is into this that we plunge
and drift, and soon become lost at sea.
