
On this Thursday morning here on Cape Cod, I thought I might offer a poem that was written by a local poet, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet by the name of Mary Oliver…the title is called “Something”...
Something fashioned this yellow-white lace-mass that the sea has brought to the shore and left–
like popcorn stuck to itself, or a string of lace rolled up tight, or a handful of fingering shells pasted together, each with a tear where something escaped into the sea. I brought it home out of the uncombed morning and consulted among my books. I do not know what to call this sharpest desire
to discover a name, but there it is, suddenly, clearly
illustrated on the page, offering my heart
another singular
moment of happiness: to know that it is the egg case of an ocean shell, the whelk, which, in its proper season, spews forth its progeny in such glutenous and faintly glimmering fashion, each one chewing and tearing itself free
While what is left rides to shore, one more sweet-as honey answer for the wanderer whose tongue is agile, whose mind, in the world’s riotous plenty,
wants syntax, connections, lists, and most of all names to set beside the multitudinous stars, flowers, sea creatures, rocks, trees. The egg case of the whelk
sits on my shelf in front of, as it happens, Blake. Something I dream that everything in the world is here, in my room, in a great closet, named and orderly,
and I am here too, in front of it,
hardly able to see for the flash and brightness–
and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing;
and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.
Have a wonderful Thursday! Peace~ M