The Poetry of
Jack Scott

Mountain Crockery

Slow waves breaking on the sea
from shore.

Shore shells,
fragments of the ancient
sifting from the then,
newcomers to the now,
meeting, jostling, rubbing shoulders,
whispering their well-worn gossip,
all kin from far-flung family
sharing common calcium,
exchanging encores
for the job well done,
molasses passage through
the gantlet sieve.

Slow waves of erosion
too slow to hold the eye
have broken mountain’s crockery
into shards upon the seaside table,
crumbs upon the unswept floor
just inside the door of continent.

Wipe your feet
and count your footprints,
come inside,
or wade into a sea,
one direction or the other,
but be cautious,
a tidal wave of land
descends upon shell pickers
at the edge of safety
on the beach of double sea
too caught up in their brief vacation
to realize that if they dive in time,
they’ll drown.

 

636 ®Copyright 1974 Jack Scott. All rights reserved.
From Poemystic.com