Salutation To The Sun
My wife introduced me to St. Ives in Cornwall forty years ago. We spent our honeymoon there and although we’ve visited many places here and abroad we always feel a need to return to St.Ives which holds many memories for us of family holidays spent there with our two daughters. There are holidays now with our grand children.
The last time we were there was two years ago with our daughter and her little girl, Charlotte. While they were on the beach I decided to visit the sculpture garden and house of the sculptress Barbara Hepworth. All these years and I’d never been to the house and garden before. It was a warm and sunny afternoon. I strolled around the garden, saw her workshop which has been left exactly as it was on the day she died with her smock still hanging on the back of the door, as if she has just popped out for a break. As I walked back into the house I started to read her Quotations that line the walls. One of them stopped me in my tracks –
“I, the sculptor, am the landscape.”
You see that’s how I’d felt that morning, that special morning some thirty years ago – a sense of belonging – being a part of my surroundings. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it since. Before I could stop myself I was telling the young lady, behind the cash desk, Zara, that I’d felt like that myself while running on Porthminster beach before breakfast on that particular morning all those years ago. I’d thought I was alone, just me, the sea, the sand and the blue morning sky but I wasn’t alone. Suddenly I’d found myself running past a lady in her late sixties practising yoga. As I passed her we spoke. “Good morning. Beautiful isn’t it?” then I ran on. That memory stayed in my head for the next twenty-five years and then I told Zara I’d written a poem about the experience.
“That would have been Phyllis.” she said.
“But it was nearly thirty years ago”
“Phyllis always practised yoga on the beach. She’s still here. She’s in her nineties – I visit her every weekend.”
You can imagine my amazement. I asked if I could send her a copy of the poem to give to Phyllis and she agreed.
I had a letter back from Phyllis- the lady on the beach all that time ago. She thanked me for the poem. Explained that she’d taken up yoga after breaking her neck in a horseriding accident. She had been fitted with a neck brace and told she would always be a semi-invalid. Three years later the same doctor examined her and pronounced her cured. She still practises yoga every day but now at home going to Porthminster beach on early summer mornings to run the length of it and paddle in the sea. On 26th November this year she will be 97 years young. She ends the letter by saying she will be pleased to see me the next time I’m in St. Ives.
poem – “Salutation to the Sun.” is dedicated of course to Phyllis M. Hammel, the lady I met briefly on Porthminster beach, St. Ives, one beautiful summer’s morning all those years ago.
“Salutation to the Sun.”.
Morning run on Porthminster beach
As it lay basking in the sun.
Cooled by a breeze brought on the tide
As dying waves seeped deep
And turned golden sand a darker hue.
Salutation morning sun
Salutation on the run
Pounding heart and pounding feet.
Salutation as we meet.
I passed you sheltered by black rocks
Yet even with your youth long passed,
Your body shone still in the sun.
Cross – legged, erect, each practised pose,
Slowed Time’s ever quickening pace.
Time on my shoulder as I raced.
Inevitable as the changeless sea
That drew ever closer wave on wave.
Disciplined rituals hard learned
Balanced and matched in harmony.
You mirrored the still rocks and sand
I, the constant movement of the sea.
Pounding and calm serenity
Connected us to nature’s way.
Reflected the morning’s symmetry.
Rituals played out on the sand
As we caught the sea’s spray in our hand.
Brief meeting, words we never said
Preserved now forever, in my head.
That morning run on Porthminster beach
When Time froze the moment and stood still.
Dedicated to Phyllis M. Hamel