A Poem for a Thursday #302

I’ve been missing the ocean more than usual these days. The warmer weather makes me want to stroll on a beach in the evening. I love the beach when the sun is going down, the people are leaving, and the sand begins to cool. Searching for shells and sea glass in the last of the day’s light is the perfect way to spend a summer evening. Mary Oliver’s poem is about the beach in the morning which is also lovely. Basically, there is never a bad time to be by the ocean.

I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It's like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
     full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Breakage
Mary Oliver