As the sun wrote its golden ribbon of a lullaby around the setting clouds I said goodnight to you. I said it as if there would be other nights, and other sunsets, other versions of you in my life. I said it as if you were still here, in daylight, in the sand-shored silence of a distant lowing tide. In that perfect moment between dusk and darkness when the truth is just another inky shadow we can skirt around I said a small quiet prayer. There is no space in my head to repeat it, nor to say I miss you. Not yet. For now there is just this Beadnell sky, this setting sun, and these gulls – our daily companions – roosting somewhere on the landing strip of the estuary. There are nests, and there are preening grounds: the perfect configuration of everything life needs to go on regardless of the dramas playing out in our excellent, wind-worn lives.
