Author’s note: “This poem began as a simple list playing with the idea that beachcombing can be a metaphor for living one’s life. But I love the pantoum, especially when describing the sea’s endless rhythm, which the repetitive form mimics and enhances. When I rewrote the poem as a pantoum it became much more powerful, a way of understanding how we are all inevitably broken by the relentless tides of life but there is beauty in that brokenness.”
Rules for Beachcombing
First, you must forgive yourself
for all that you will miss.
Agree to go empty-handed.
Nothing is here for you, per se.
For all that you will miss,
the horizon is treasure enough.
Nothing is here for you
but what the restless water brings.
The horizon is treasure enough.
Still you call the names,
what the restless water brings
from the deep—olive, moon, murex—
you call their names—
triton, tellin, limpet.
From the deep—olive, moon, murex—
comes tidewrack’s wreckage—
triton, tellin, limpet—
the unusual color, the odd shape.
In tidewrack’s wreckage
the beauty of ruin tumbles,
the unusual color, the odd shape.
The fluted column of shattered whelk
tumbles in its beautiful ruin.
Allow for the broken,
the fluted column of shattered whelk.
Fall to your knees, your skin sand-gritted,
amid so many broken.
A million lives begin and end here.
Fall to your knees, your skin sand-gritted,
and agree to go empty-handed.
A million lives begin and end here.
First, you must forgive yourself.
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Wendy Mitman Clarke’s writing has been featured in numerous publications, especially in the Chesapeake Bay region. She won the Pat Nielsen Poetry Prize in 2015 and 2017, and her poem “The Kiss” (in Delmarva Review) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her nonfiction has been published in River Teeth and Smithsonian. Her novel Still Water Bending was released in October 2017. Website: WendyMitmanClarke.com.
Delmarva Review is a literary journal publishing the most compelling new prose and poetry from thousands of submissions annually. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, partial financial support comes from individual contributions and a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. The review is available worldwide from the major online booksellers and specialty regional bookstores. For more information, please see the website: www.DelmarvaReview.org
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