Poem: Sea Glass

A north wind
Slips between
My scarf and hat,
Chilling my neck,
And reddening my ears,
As I walk the beach,
Alone,
In solitude pierced
Only by the occasional
Gull dropping
A quahog at low tide,
Or the rumble of a car
Upon the bridge
Across the bay.

A north wind
Slips between the wave
Of high and low tide,
Churning storm driven
Sand, shells, and rocks,
To be deposited
In lines of recession
From the ebbing moon,
Reflecting the crescent
Of the beach, I walk,
Alone,
Among the abandoned
Shells, which await
Discovery or destruction
Back to grains of calcium
Mixed with the grains of quartz.

The north wind
Scrubs the shells
And rocks on shore
With the fine
Movement of sand,
Smoothing all
Toward rounded shards,
Along the beach, alone,
I walk,
Selecting a specimen
To fill my pocket,
Before another tide,
Pulls it back,
To roll again
In the surf.

The north wind
Sifts a piece of glass,
Fragmented from
Some bottle,
Tossed or dropped,
From a picnic, or boat,
Or adolescent binge,
To turn and turn,
Among the shells,
And grains of sand,
Until burnished,
On the beach, alone,
Separated from
The other fragments,
Of its original form.
I turn it,
Examining its
Glint in the winter sun,
Then flick it back
For further work.

Before, the wind,
Turns my skin,
Raw, I release
My grasp on the bottle
From last night’s wine,
Green from red,
Clear or blue from white,
A slight upward
Arch before
Shattering on low tide’s
Rocks,
To be covered
By the next tide’s
Waves of rocks, sands,
And shells,
To disappear until
Some summer morning
A beach-comber
Finds it for her collection,
A shadow of my walk,
Alone, in winter’s solitude.