Among the cobbles of a shingle beach,
one thumb-sized stone draws
your beachcomber’s eye, too pure a blue
to be granite, opaque but somehow
promising translucence.
A wave clatters up & wets
your ankles. You grab for the stone,
now glistening—clearly glass
& once a shard, despite the loss
of all sharp edges &
its transformation from fragment
to a whole small world.
It has turned & turned in the bay’s
watery gullet, that precipitous gizzard
full of ersatz teeth.
What smaller, softer things
has it ground down as it spun?
It dries in your hand now & the light
goes out of it. Eager to show the children,
you pop it in your mouth
& it is a gem again while the saliva lasts.
It rides home in your pocket,
a hard candy that never melts
& takes days to lose
its taste of salted sun.
Prompted by this conversation.
See the response by Rachel Rawlins, “Shoulder.”
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Dog Logic
- The Colors of Noise
- Crossing Wales
- Memo from the CEO of Little Prince, Inc.
- Poems to be shaved into the hair of the author’s back
- Desideratum
- Capture
- Living in Analog
- Organ Meats: A Primer
- Walking Weather
- Beach Glass
- Tree Without Birds
- Hermit
- The Captain’s Reverses
- Pets
- Exchange
- Heart
- Digital
- The Fullness of Time
- Pandora
- Reading the Icelandic Sagas
- Hit the Lights
- Vagina Dialogue
- Helmsman
- Old Norse Family Values
- On Hold
- Heels
- Looking for the Reader
- The conversation continues: two videopoems
Man! I spent the day yesterday mouthing the boulders of a fog-damp gorge.
*A photographic savouring.
Ah, O.K. I was going to ask how you got boulders in your mouth!
the taste of salted sun – beautiful.
I love sea glass (and sea ceramics too) but have never put it in my mouth!
I can’t take credit for that last line, which I agree is the best in the poem — it came almost verbatim from my interlocutor. (She’s a poet and she doesn’t know it.)
how beautiful…there are so many nuggets in this poem; the whole thing is one beauty to the next, but especially i love this part:
“its transformation from fragment
to a whole small world.”
AND
‘It has turned & turned in the bay’s
watery gullet, that precipitous gizzard
full of ersatz teeth.”
wow.
Yes, much to love here, Dave. For what it’s worth, I’m not often at the sea either but found some sea glass on the beach last winter in Jacksonville. Of course I put it in my mouth, and of course it tasted of salt. But I just tried it with a piece here in my studio, a year later, and the salt taste is all gone. The glass still feels great in the mouth though. I guess some of us are just more oral than others!
Wonderful poem! It reminded me of an experience I had, which I turned into a poem, and this morning a blog post here: http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2012/01/are-you-experiencing-bleak-january.html
Glad to read this poem, and connect it to beach glass moments of my own, including saliva!
Thanks, all, for your kind words about this poem. I guess it benefitted from its lengthy (for me) gestation period.
Oddly enough, though I smoked for 14 years and used to suck my thumb as a young child, I’ve never put a piece of beach glass in my mouth that I can recall.