Waiting

For the tide to go out.

Up

Through a crack in the great volcanic spiricles and boulders

To reach a rocky inlet lightly sprinkled with sea salt--

"rock sweat".

A graveyard of snails.

Curly queued markers

of where lives halted

as the tide went out.

Now their soft bodies

roasting inside their captive shells,

Waiting.

For the tide to come in.

--Peter Island, summer, 1995 Click here to return to Corinne's Main Page