On Shore

I wrote this poem many years ago, after a time among women whose lives were very, very broken. I felt inadequate even to speak an encouraging word. I don't know if the poem is any good, and perhaps it should go back in the drawer. You can tell me what you think, if you'd like.


From where I stand

I see the endless sea

Check out, check in.

I myself am empty, a shell really,

Can barely hold sand,

Can only echo, shaped as I am,

The sound of waves.

All this is ground bone,

Salt-sea washed and soft as flesh

Beneath a tattered hem, a woman's weeds.

Unlike me she was not formed

But flung

Abandoned and unsaved

From off the breast of sea.

So much debris

From where I stand.