A Hermit Life For Me

My imagination has been a seashell brimming with nostalgic memories of the sea...

And time spent on top of a lonely rock anticipating sunrise and contemplating sunset..

And dreaming...

Of a house on my back

And words made beautiful by Mary Oliver

Once I looked inside

of a shell folded like a pastry

and there was a fancy face—

or almost a face—

it turned away

and frisked up its brawny forearms

against the light

and my looking in

I scarcely had time to see it,

Gleaming

Under the pure white roof

of old calcium

When I set it down, it hurried

Along the tideline

of the sea,

which was slashing along as usual,

shouting and hissing

toward the future

turning its back

with every tide on the past,

leaving the shore littered

every morning

with more ornaments of death—

what a pearly rubble

From which to choose a house

like a white flower—

and what a rebellion

to leap into it

and hold on,

connecting everything,

the past to the future—

which is of course the miracle—

which is the only argument there is

against the sea

~Mary Oliver  -  House of Light

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