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The Beachcomber

The waiting shores enjoy my prayerful walks,
Their sand like somber elegies pulled forth
From some arrangement in a minor key,
So wondered I, musician close at heart,
What tunes and keys the ocean played across,
And what its range in notes: I longed to know.
So hurriedly I dropped my rosary,
And left it there, in moonlight, on the sand,
As if I thought the waters would come forth
And lift it from its place, to count the beads
That I had counted time and time again,
So now the string was frayed, the colors faded:
The force of all my quiet songs to God.
So now, I watched the seas spill forth their sound,
The voices of that great abyss, like lights
Come dancing, jubilant, above the ground
And carrying their melancholy plights.
I calculated every note they sang,
Melodious, in their concocted lines
As if the choir of heaven had come down
To stroke the seas in music. Let us sing,
The many ships there shipwrecked now implore,
Let us be lifted up, not lying dead
Beneath fragmented lyrics on the shore,
Let us rise up in harmony instead!
And I—I took the rosary again,
Once only said on long, deserted trails,
But now I spoke again. With every prayer,
I etched some human marks into the sand,
Where tides had not yet come, where men had walked,
But only once and never walked again:
With every word I spoke, a music note
Came tumbling forth out from a rotten twig,
I’d chosen to write music with. Now I
Observed these nine set paths I’d drawn across
The wilderness of beach, these music lines,
And on them tiny notes—what could they conquer?
Still, I wrote them where I once had made
Great fortresses of sand, with walls and motes
And selling, at their gateways lemonade,
No more of castles: here come music notes.
And yet, I knew the greatness of the sea
Could not be reprimanded when off key.