Beach Poem

We were lucky to go to the beach last week.  At the ocean with the kids, I always think of e.e.cummings' poem, "maggie and millie and mollie and may".   I've traced it here before.  My endless photos of kids with beach treasures cried out for a repeat.

will and clara and june and john 

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and will discovered some clams that opened

so slightly he could imagine their mystery, and

clara befriended a tangle of kelp

whose tangles magically mirrored her own;

and june was drawn in by a huge dead lobster

that spooked her enough to back away quick

john used every muscle to lift a stone

as small as a ball and as big as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we find at the sea.