Shell-bits Pucker

By memory my mind is moved,
placed on a beach I once knew.
With sky above and waters blue
a child beside the sea.

Sun so bright to heat that sand,
which tickles fingers on small hand.
As if from life’s great hourglass,
time pours out, from boy to man.

Sounds above of seabird wings
Gliding over unknown things,
Beneath, the oceans, with surface vast
it twinkles with light reflections.

Endless breezes stir seas calm
that move, as I, merrily along.
In search of wonders large and small,
shoeless and curious I go.

Gazing at a watery hole,
I find a flower, no root or soil,
when touched responds in recoil
and closes very quickly.

Its cover of shell-bits pucker,
it shrinks in size to quite small.
I smile with success, a discoverer’s pride,
here beneath summers fiery ball.

I move and my shadow follows
startling other eyes in this pool.
They, masked by colors and texture,
holding still my only tool.

There it is again, a movement,
my focus keen and alert.
How could these bits of life understand?
I come here not to hurt.

I stare at the stillness several moments
And am lost to the world around.
I watch as their community renews it’s self,
and marvel at this universe found.


That shell has legs.
A small red crab.
A fish, too small to notice.
Volcanoes with plumbs, fan in their way,
and still there is greater movement.

Small feather like shrimp
that jerk with each stroke,
come to rest near that flower, now open.
Shadow passed, fear is gone, a cycle returns
As incoming tides flow over.

The splash from strong waves,
which ripple the surface,
don’t detour or even surprise.
A rhythm is here, sustained by the moon,
And witnessed by my very own eyes.

Off in the distance, familiar a calling,
“We’re leaving; it’s time to go.”
As the pool and its universe found within,
is lost and visited no more.