Always,
even before
the mountains
were born,
it was the sea
that folded
its dark soul
around algae bloom
and plankton
and embryonic
fishes, around ashen
rain and shattered
prisms of light,
and offered up
its titanic floor
as the resting place
of life.

Consider
that broken shell
just washed ashore,
its barnacle covered walls
torn from some reef,
some shoal, some rotted
keel. I can still make out
its once perfect shape,
its tiny spiral staircase
winding to a sculpted
peak, and I raise it
to my ear, hoping to hear
the song of waves
beyond my reach,
but in my hands hold
only voices-lost
beneath the sea.

REQUIEM is from a series of poems collected under the working title of Pages of Sand - an evolving manuscript inspired in great part by my fascination with and love of the sea, the natural world in which we exist, and everyday observations of people's experiences of life. Origin of this particular piece was not so much the draw of the sea, or the sound of its waves at night, or the fragile beauty of a shell, but the moodiness associated with loss of life and the ocean's unfathomable hold on eternity. REQUIEM received first place honors in the 1999 Milford Fine Arts Council National Poetry Contest.