'To Shells' by Lorie Greenspan

I raise a seashell as a toast to what can be discovered

along the water and you say,

I will always be on that beach with you.

And I say Will you?

Will you be the shell I covet? The one I toss aside?

The wave that overpowers me?

Are you in the stink of seaweed or the smell of salt?

In the water that wets my ankles?

No longer in a chair, waving to me, will you be

the column wedged into the earth that will not shake from storms?

Me, walking from tip of foam to wave’s retreat,

and you, unable to walk anywhere, remain seated and watching.

You nod to me in sarcastic humor, not understanding

that my find is the most brilliant of anything scattered along the water.

And I say

Let me walk farther to get to shells.

These things

that will always be there.

Copyright. Lorie Greenspan.

Lorie Greenspan is publishing director at a Deerfield Beach, Florida, book publishing company. Prior to moving to Florida in 2015, she was a newspaper editor in New Jersey for more than thirty years. Her poems are inspired by the death of her husband of twenty years in April 2020, following a long illness. She has also written a middle-grade fantasy novel that she hopes to publish next year (2022).