Poem: Carolina Dunes

Carolina Dunes

Crinkle crackle crunch… they break…
With the pounding surf against the sand
Broken shells seeking solace from beneath the waves
Outside the social contract and norms
In a desolate sacred place
Finding carcasses strewn from storms
Ginger footprints seeking calm
In the rhythm of the comforting tide
Just a strip of land between ocean and sound
Embracing the power to endure
Against the endless ocean
To face the challenges that come
Rising above pain, beyond a cure
The last hours slipping sand through fingers
Wishing to keep going when we want her to stay
Seven sister seashells imperfectly intact
Summoning strength as one transcends
Six hundred forty miles away
Then with a Tuesday sunrise
…she’s gone…
And a foal emerges from the weathered
Wild-rye, sea lyme, and strand-wheat thicket
Sea oats swaying, stunted, gnarled Carolina pines
Peaking toward the shore
The first seen in more than thirty years
The sunrise foal wanders looking me in the eyes
In the colony by the sea

By Melissa Kavanaugh Zapanta