Shellbabies

I'm surprised I hadn't put this yet on my blog. Written 2/14/07 after a creative writing exercise. We were told to pick a sea shell out of a bag, and then to write about it. I of course don't have what I wrote during the assignment, but this is the second draft of the poem that resulted from the exercise:

She gathered them up on the shore,

     from our hands full of sand and ink,

     and hid them in the folds of her purple jacket.

We were eager to hear her decipher

     the winds and the waves

     and the ocean hiding in the curves

     of each shell.

She walked a ways and sat among the grassy dunes

     holding each shell to her ear

     and listened to our words,

     our children,

And we watched her smile of approbation grow

before the cold foam broke around us and sent us,

shivering, back into the depths from which we came.