Sand, Turtle, Moon

Instead of writing about the moon,

I choose instead these icy, cold shores.

Wet sand draws the white water to her

and for a moment, its all one indistinguishable “wet.”

Sand doesn’t cling to this alignment, though.

She is more porous than that, sand.

Sand allows salt water to sink down, to move her.

Sand marinates in the weight of each dark, new set.

Why not, instead of morning’s damp beaches,

choose the white-belly-shell of the sea turtle?

White-belly-shell waxes crescent, quarter, gibbous

until, full shine, you witness it above you.

White-belly-shell is raucous and fast, then,

She trails upward toward the big wide white, that shell!

Like the moon, white-belly-shell emerges; she doesn’t rise.

How dissimilar she is from us.

Up here, we require ceremony,

a bit of pomp, at least a loud thrash,

as we struggle to whirl beyond the spot

where rays reach nothing; not you, not me, not us.

In response to the prompt "To the Moon, 14th Annual Getaway 2007"  by Peter Murphy found in his collection called Challenges for the Delusional, edited by Christine Malvasi.