Sea Pebbles

Unknown

Sea Pebbles

My love, how time makes hardness shine.

They come in every color, pure or mixed

gray-green of basalt, blood-soaked jasper, quartz,

granite and feldspar, even bits of glass,

smoothed by the patient jeweller of the tides.

Volcano-born, earthquake-quarried,

shaven by glaciers, wind-carved, heat-cracked,

stratified, speckled, bright in the wet surf—

no two alike, all torn from the dry land

tossed up in millions on this empty shore.

How small death seems among the rocks. It drifts

light as a splintered bone the tide uncovers.

It glints among the shattered oyster shells,

gutted by gulls, bleached by salt and sun—

the broken crockery of living things.

Cormorants glide across the quiet bay.

A falcon watches from the ridge, indifferent

to the burdens I have carried here.

No point in walking farther, so I sit,

hollow as driftwood, dead as any stone.

Dana Gioia

"How small death seems among the rocks. It drifts/light as a splintered bone the tide uncovers." A beautiful but chilling line. The description of the stones, too, "blood-soaked jasper", "volcano-born, earthquake-quarried, shaven by glaciers, wind-carved..torn..tossed up..." is one of violence. There on the beach before him, the speaker sees a panoply of violence and death. And yet, there is something else, too. "The patient jeweller of the tides", who works the broken glass bits into sea- glowing gems, the forgotten, broken discards made mysteriously new/old, once common buttons or bits now uncommon, rare. The strangeness of shells, which, though nothing but remains, skeletons of once living molluscs, become something like pieces of art; sculpted minute monuments to the lives they once housed. This is how Time and the ocean work upon life and death. Curiously, with rhythmic alchemy, so that what was once merely a multitudinous brokenness, becomes a  treasure, a sign of hope. The speaker, though, sits among all this like a shell of himself, indifferent, unresponsive. Is there hope that Time and the patient jeweller will do their work on him as well? If stones can be made to shine, can broken humans be made something new?

Beachcomber

Angie Lewin

Beachcomber

Monday I found a boot –

Rust and salt leather.

I gave it back to the sea, to dance in.

Tuesday a spar of timber worth thirty bob.

Next winter

It will be a chair, a coffin, a bed.

Wednesday a half can of Swedish spirits.

I tilted my head.

The shore was cold with mermaids and angels.

Thursday I got nothing, seaweed,

A whale bone,

Wet feet and a loud cough.

Friday I held a seaman’s skull,

Sand spilling from it

The way time is told on kirkyard stones.

Saturday a barrel of sodden oranges.

A Spanish ship

Was wrecked last month at The Kame.

Sunday, for fear of the elders,

I sit on my bum.

What’s heaven? A sea chest with a thousand gold coins.

George Mackay Brown

What’s Heaven? Hunting for beautiful shells and sea glass on the beach. I now understand the excitement of a storm, not just the storm itself, but the treasures it kicks up, the opportunities for discovery. This poem is for Janelle and Callie and all the other beachcombers I've come to know over the years. Here's to the hunt!

 

Snowstorm

E. Balfour Browne

Snowstorm

What a night! The wind howls, hisses, and but stops

To howl more loud, while the snow volley keeps

Incessant batter at the window pane,

Making our comfort feel as sweet again;

And in the morning, when the tempest drops,

At every cottage door mountainous heaps

Of snow lie drifted, that all entrance stops

Until the beesom and the shovel gain

The path, and leave a wall on either side.

The shepherd rambling valleys white and wide

With new sensations his old memory fills,

When hedges left at night, no more descried,

Are turned to one white sweep of curving hills,

And trees turned bushes half their bodies hide.

The boy that goes to fodder with surprise

Walks oer the gate he opened yesternight.

The hedges all have vanished from his eyes;

Een some tree tops the sheep could reach to bite.

The novel scene emboldens new delight,

And, though with cautious steps his sports begin,

He bolder shuffles the huge hills of snow,

Till down he drops and plunges to the chin,

And struggles much and oft escape to win--

Then turns and laughs but dare not further go;

For deep the grass and bushes lie below,

Where little birds that soon at eve went in

With heads tucked in their wings now pine for day

And little feel boys oer their heads can stray.

John Clare

John Clare is a master scene-setter. Reading this poem slowly, each detail appears vividly on my inner eye, and I come away with the sense of having experienced the poem’s world. I wonder, could a person who had never seen snow, have any true sort of understanding of it after having read this poem?

The Winter is Cold, is Cold

Amir Belhoula

The Winter is Cold, Is Cold

The winter is cold, is cold.

All’s spent in keeping warm.

Has joy been frozen, too?

I blow upon my hands

Stiff from the biting wind.

My heart beats slow, beats slow.

What has become of joy?

If joy’s gone from my heart

Then it is closed to You

Who made it, gave it life.

If I protect myself

I’m hiding, Lord, from you.

How we defend ourselves

In ancient suits of mail!

Protected from the sword,

Shrinking from the wound,

We look for happiness,

Small, safety-seeking, dulled,

Selfish, exclusive, in-turned.

Elusive, evasive, peace comes

Only when it’s not sought.

Help me forget the cold

That grips the grasping world.

Let me stretch out my hands

To purifying fire,

Clutching fingers uncurled.

Look! Here is the melting joy.

My heart beats once again.

Madeleine L' Engle

 

Snow and fire. Fear or trust. Where does joy begin?.