Sea Glass

Sea glass slips onto

The beaches of my sound mind

When will I go blind?

___________________________

Notes from the Author:

I spent many happy days growing up beachcombing with my family. We would go when the tide was rolling away, and stay for as long as we could. I can remember birthday celebrations and yearly visits to rocky shores.

I was always looking down, off hunting for crystals, agate, sea shells, coral, driftwood, sparkly rocks, interesting pebbles, stones, and sea glass. I’d walk barefoot and investigate the homes of small creatures, pop seaweed bubbles between my fingers, and search for caves to hide in.

I learned the art of collecting from my Mother at an early age. Neither one of us can leave a beach without filling our pockets full. Rocks can be found all over my Mom’s home. Each and every one holds meaning. They hark back to a specific location or person, or are simply deemed special because of their unique markings or colors. My Mom is very protective of her sacred and varied collection, so some of the items I can barely even touch, but I convinced her to let me put together a decorative tray to display some of her treasures.

Sea glass takes anywhere from 20 to 200 years to form. I’ve always been mesmerized by transformations, however, there’s something truly magical about the natural and transformative process of the ocean tumbling shards of glass into smooth, frosted pebbles. A product only made possible through the collaboration of humans and nature, the physical and chemical changes that glass undergoes to become sea glass reminds us of its symbolism for personal growth and healing. Even though my child self didn’t realize this, I always held sea glass in high regard, and could feel it’s wonderful healing powers...or at least I imagined.

The formation of glass itself as a man made substance, comes from sand, so it seems poetically justified that something once derived from hot liquefied sand, will eventually find its way back to cool sandy shores after having been engulfed by the ocean, and turned into sea glass.

Sea glass in relation to beaches (in this case) is a metaphor for extraordinary memories standing out from the less memorable recollections. Visits to beaches were always memories that stuck with me. When I make reference to ‘going blind’ here, I really mean, ‘lose my mind,’ — idioms that stem from a paranoia of memory loss. The visual of one touching beach pebbles, not knowing which are colorful or mundane (or even pebbles at all) is one that I hoped to create in the last line to convey the feeling of mental fog rolling in — not being able to distinguish one memory from the next.

I hope you enjoyed reading this piece as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you liked this haiku, you might also enjoy this poem…

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Thank you for reading!