The diggers are there, children with shovels
and pails, waders too in the chill water,
and dogs, great leaping dogs who love
waves and sticks. There is music, practitioners
of yoga, and those like me who walk the wrack line
in silence looking for what gleams and glitters
amid pebbles, dried grass, and
pieces of drift wood.
We know each other, seldom talk, give a wave
from afar and move on, solitary searchers
honoring what the lake, nature's tumbler, left for us
to find, surfaces and edges frosted, smoothed
by currents and storms and time,
encouraging
me to create stories for the sea glass I find,
pieces of green and amber glass, heavy crockery
and dishware, fragments with flowers,
Nordic designs, stylized patterns making me think
of those who I will never know,
those making and using the whole of what
I now find in pieces,
memory-holders I plan to place along the windowsill
where the sun will find them
and make them glow.
Kathleen Phillips lives in an senior living apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She loves living in the city and exploring the parks nearby. This is "a city built on water" . . . Lake Michigan is two blocks away and there are rivers close by. During this time of pandemic and isolation, walks on the beaches and along the river banks have kept her energized. Now 85 and writing as much as ever, she finds each season and each location offers new prompts for poetry . . . and pays attention to as many as she can!
Featured image by Jenny Spadafora “findings” CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
