Ariel, Pacific NW poet

On Facebook today, someone shared on of my favorite videos, featuring beaches covered with sea glass.  I am very fond of sea-glass – the idea of hard edges being softened down
by ocean … and when I run across a piece on one of our Oregon Beaches, I tuck the treasure home.

I first saw the video when my baby sister, a photographer, posted it in April 2014. Within a few days, my NaPoWriMo Challenge challenged me to write “about something hard”. I
realized that this sea-glass was an appropriate addition to my unrequited love theme …

so let me share the original NaPoWriMo 2014 Day 16 draft here …

Wantme to read it to you? Click here!

Simile

Sea glass cannot send instant messages
         of how it misses you and still loves you;
         there’s all the things that it is not,
no digits flexible to press the buttons,
         no voice to send through the air.
It has been broken, ground down by the waves:
         no longer shiny and transparent,
         no longer a vessel for your lips.
Sea glass, through prized and collected by some,
         no longer can reflect sunlight;
it has been dulled, though some say softened;
         it has been tossed, though some say polished.
It can no longer be gathered in your arms;
         it is too hard to sleep with.
In truth, it is no longer a useful object;
         good only for adding to potpourri
         or sitting on a shelf to remember a once-sunny day;
but still … sea glass misses you and  still loves you.
         It’s just too hard to say.