Day 493: Shells

 

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∴

when i was a child,
i would collect sea shells
along the beach
near my grandmother’s home.

some were flat
and broken.

some were shards
of larger conchs.

some were tiny,
and perfect,
and easily lost
by seaweed that tangled them in,
by feet that buried them under,
or by foam that carried them off
and spun them back
to the ocean’s blue.

 

you could hold the old ones
up to your ears –

the ones that had deep
and twisted caverns in them –

and hear the sea.

 

it didn’t matter how far away
from the sea you got;
waves were always audible
from the hollows
of these hallowed
holds.

 

i like to believe
the sound was actually
the memory of origin,
irrefutable in it’s bones
and it’s being,
that echoed and echoed,
tide after tide of time.

and that despite the hard,
or spiked,
or scratched,
or glossy
exteriors,
it could not
forget the sound

of home.

 

it is also my comfort now,
to think
it was the elder shells,
the crooked shells,
the ones who had twisted around themselves
and finally opened at the end
into a smooth fleshy pink,
like a polished pig’s ear,
that could make such a sound –

the whole of the oceans –

by simply being open,
and finally,
and sorrowfully,
and thankfully

empty.

∴

 

 

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