Hi Colin,
Mis out the first line, it's redundant. Otherwise fine.
bw
James
>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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