Cascara Chorus It’s like she was waiting, just for me, especially for me. | She sat on the sand just beyond where the surf would pull her back into the swirling crash of waves, where she’d be thundered against rocks and coral and other shells, with all those who do not survive to their second life. | This beautiful cascara, a creamy cone of shell, painted with wisps of chocolatey brown squiggling down her body and flowering around the crown of her head. | Her pointy tail broken off, some accident on the wild ride in from her old home in the sandy depths. | Her underside rubbed free of her artsy markings, worn from a lifetime’s journey. | A little piece of another shell tucked in her side slot, taking a free ride to wherever she’s going. | She seems to have known an orchestra of shells waited on the windowsill for her, needing the instrument of her being to complete their song. | And now, I sit on the bench, in front of the window and I hear the music whispering in my ear, the chorus rejoicing: life is beauty and light.
This poem, like last week’s poem (Lluvia), is fresh from my most recent trip to Mexico. It was probably the best shell collecting ever – I found so many varieties, and so many of several varieties (like cowries, turritellas, limpets). Too bad that my abundance was confiscated at the airport coming home. So I’m practicing being unattached and realizing the real joy was in the seeking and finding and enjoying on the windowsill.
And Then Opens Possibility 