That conch shell..?

It is precious to me

I picked it up

One sunny morn

When all the world lay lost

In a lazy,  lazy slumber.

 

Alone was I, abroad, that sunny morn

There, by the ocean’s edge

The waves swirling

Around my feet

Coaxing me,

Luring me

 

I looked at the sun

That melting orb

Pulsating with orange

The color of courage,

A demanding, commanding courage.

There it shone

Flaunting the color that was once mine.,

Teasing, daring me

To wrest my color back from him.

But I lowered my eyes

Losing the battle

Before even it was begun.

I let him win

Letting him take over all the color

From my very soul.

 

That hushed morn

While the world lay asleep

I walked by the edge of the ocean, defeated

Watery sand squelching between my toes

Eyes lowered

Avoiding the triumphant look

Of the sun.

 

There in the sand, it lay

The conch shell, upturned

As if slain in battle

White belly exposed

To the glowering orange orb.

It too had bled away its color, I knew.

 

I picked it up

That fallen comrade-in-arms

I brushed away the sand

From its body

I bathed it in the vast ocean

And peered timidly within.

 

Did I expect to see its heart perhaps?

Blood maybe… or dripping wounds…?

There was nothing inside

Nothing but emptiness

Silent and black.

I peered deep within

Silently begging it, imploring

To bleed… to beat… to be alive once more.

But it remained stubborn, willfully empty

And awfully, terribly silent.

 

I put it to my ear, for I had heard

That shells sing to you,

Of lands far away.

They tell you sweet stories

Of people and times gone by,

Of what they did and who they did it with.

I was eager to hear them

Those stories

Wanted desperately to hear them

To hear tales of the doer and his doings,

As one wants to hear of long lost kin

 

I put the shell to my ear

But I heard nothing

Nothing but an eerie silence

Poured into my ear

Hot as lava, black as despair

All the way to my heart.

From there it pumped and flowed

Filling my veins; my brain and my eyes

I was drowning

I know I was

I couldn’t bear it

Yet I kept

The shell to my ear

Not giving a damn

Letting it do what it will

Letting it drown me.

Morbid? Perhaps…

 

My feet became as of lead

My body was full of thick blackness

I sank down on my knees in the sand

I sat depleted

Yet I held the shell to my ear

I don’t know who held whom

We seem to have merged

The shell and I.

 

The moment when I became one with it

When I felt as if

The next moment must surely

Be my last

It began to sing.

 

It’s voice was that well beloved voice

I had hungered to hear

For ever so long

It filled my being with sweet songs

Poured into me with prodigious abandon

Draining away dark

Filling me with light and music

Filling me with itself

Completing me.

 

And my soul danced

My spirit lifted

My limbs twitched

I flung my head up

Glared at the arrogant, teasing sun

And mocked his derisive smile.

The sky was aglow

Madly, insistently orange

The world was bathed in glory.

 

The color seeped into my eyes

Mingled with my blood

and flowed in my veins

I stood up

Shell still clutched to my ear

Its beloved voice still singing OUR song

I walked away,

Whole once again.

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Pictures mine.

A Precious Conch Shell

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