Find a sea shell on the shore;
hold it in your calloused hand;
hear the surging roar on roar,
hear the crumbling of the land;
see the silent suck and slow
insistent pawing clay and rock,
dark tidal murmurings below
each superficial wreck and shock.
Then pull the nail from hulk of wood
black beneath the coble's rust;
drive that nail into the shell,
watch phoenix-like from osseous dust
the red rose grow and bud and bloom,
let fall its fruit upon the sand.
Split it open. Find a shell,
and hold it in your calloused hand.
Robin Skelton
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-shell/
