The Shell Collection

Before she died, my friend returned

her shell collection to the sea.

It was where they belonged, she said,

where they gleam brightest.

These are their remains

that in death make a beach.

Caressed by waves, pounded by storms,

marked by tides,

sorted and resorted by shape and size,

part of earth’s pattern in every day’s

new arrangement.

The tide turns and pauses

like a breath, out and in,

then the sigh,

the wait of a moment,

the choice of life rather than death.

And so I remember her.

When I walk the sea’s edge

and stop before a shell,

whose shape and form,

like some treasure dazzles me,

I pass by, letting the earth claim her own.

©Anne Chappel 

No Names but Beauty

I caught a pink snapper

in the first light

pulling from the oil grey sea

a sliver of dawn,

salmon pink stripes

and blue dots,

eyes too large. The sun

spreading as blood.

Round eyes that saw

unblinking, or did not see

as I did, the last

slow waving of her

webbing on translucent fins

against the cruel air.

I did not know

there are shades between pink and pearl

iridescence, for which there are

no names but beauty.

© Anne Chappel

Along the Shore

There are new things

along the shore

where storms have carved

seaweed into dark banks

against fallen stands of sea box.

A solitary gum is dying,

broken glass shines brightly

along the thin shell line.

Beach shacks jostle for the view

sharp edged in the sun,

as buildings grow.

We read the signs

sometimes so gently given

with their own strange beauty

showing us the passing world

that our children will,

crying, try to remember.

© Anne Chappel