Seashells

by Linda Bansil

His words to me sound like its carried by the wind

which stick to your throat like hot soup in a stormy day

as leaves fall out from its branches 
or the wind blows a whistle as if to say

stay where you are and do not move

invoking such command into a stand still

somehow time knows
that is  how powerful words can be

like waves in the ocean

its currents can sway to places you wouldn't have a courage to go

Say the far stretch of the shores where big hard stones places

its foot firmly to the sandy thickness of waters

whose hands are outstretched to the outskirts of the raging sea

the whispers of winds and shapely shoulders

of the angry oceans whose fingers can no longer be touched

by one so frail and unsteady

It drains the warmth of bodies who entangle themselves to willingness 
and unfathomable longing to the wide space

which words will never be able to complete or resemble

such death silence that words cannot truly catch

like fish that  swim  without fins or those seashells

who stay beautiful even when succumbed by death

shell then be and nothing more

held by those who walk this shores

makes ones attention close to its touch

as if it lives to be right at their necks

to be with the one who adores the sea

to adorn the living who can still walk the shores

waters lined in blue and green

hair tendrils swaying by the sea in shorts

July 2007