Hello Colin, For me this poem has great potential and says a lot. It does 
need tightening though, I did make a start by bracketing a few words but 
decided to leave it as I was fiddling too much with your poem. I like the 
way you introduce the poem about not being in Church and how you are 
imagining the shells as tiny replicas  of the church. The narrator probably 
learned more by studying the sea shells than he would have in church it was 
certainly making him think very deeply about life.  A meaningful poem for 
me. Bw Sally J


>From: Colin Dewar <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: shells
>Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 11:52:23 -0000
>
>Shells
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>It's Sunday morning and I'm not at church.
>I'm on the beach with a choice of shells.
>(Close enough) this one is a spire
>whose inside holds the colours of pearl.
>
>(Nothing lives here now, but) I can model
>the softness of the mollusc as it was,
>snug as a brain in its skull,
>or a hermit crab that found armour for its gut
  (and )pushed out claws ready for anything. This top shell's like a dome
>and the next is a minaret
>enlightened by a single shaft into two coils of white.
>
>Deeper in the sand, fragments from an older sea
>judge history. There is hunger
>in these tones of milk and honey.
>Some say that each shell is like the calculus
>that estimates their volume - immutable, discovered -
>but I see snail before the shell
>and what's become of base desire.
>
>Lost worlds; they are too beautiful to leave
>to bulldozing waves, the rush of pebbles and all the sea's detritus. I 
>carry them inland and place them in sunlight.
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