POETRY

Somewhere at Sea

By David Rothman

Somewhere at sea the currents shifted and
As they rolled past the coast, removed the sand.

The sideways waves deposited instead
More recent, larger figures of the dead,

Unground but grinding in wave carousels -
A thundering tumult of broken shells.

They weren't sand yet, just rolled round on their way,
Miles of them, millions of them, white and gray.

And when we waded in the tumbling foam
Its roar and hush kept calling us back home

To join that great league of forgetfulness
Again, full fathom five and motionless

Except where water blindly carry us,
Like coral, scallop, clam and nautilus

Remains, sea-changed, swirled, strange and spirits sealed.
One wave's slow end knocked my boy down. I kneeled

And picked him up, we laughed, then ran like mad
Back up that charnel house, alive and glad

To be alive. And why should death seem right
Just because its ruins reflect more light?

Each drop of ocean holds vitality
That wanders shining in the mind's dark eye.

The sun was setting and the waves churned on.
Shell will mill shell until all shells are gone.

Still, on my desk now stands a wild, curved stone,
Four inches tall, to contemplate alone.

It swirled up randomly into my hands
To save from the museum of the sands,

And there is nothing it cannot refute,
current-born, storm-tossed, tide-polished: mute.