Summer Treasure

Life once clung to
her pearly ceramic spiral,
wrapping itself round
and around inside her,
in salty emerald water.
But no more.
All is quiet now
on the ocean floor.
Sunlight filters down,
waves above run to shore
and return.
She is in the shallows now,
the sandy bottom holds her
in suspense,
pink insides upturned,
waiting hence.
A splash, a laugh, a hand,
waiving her head high
above damp yellow curls
-for joy.
"A beauty!" says the boy.
Cradled to his ear
she releases her memories
of waves and tides
and ancient seas-
the boy is pleased
to hear.
In the curl
of his brown arm
she fills him
with her salty smell.
All is well, all is well
in the love affair
of boy and shell.

kl

In celebration of the Jersey Shore summer of John Sebastian who knows God's Creation as his playground and God's Heart as his own.




The mercy of God is an ocean divine,
A boundless and fathomless flood.
Launch out in the deep, cut away the shore line,
And be lost in the fullness of God.
A. B. Simpson