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Hilltop: A Literary Paper. Volume 1 Number 1

Sea Legend

page 13

Sea Legend

This delicate sea urchin's shell, and this opposite index,
A spatulate pine-cone, were found lying side by side
On a savage shore where the patient Pacific is torn
Across acres of rocks and gravel. A symbol, a legend?
Both of them empty, having spilt their living matter.
The seed and the soft flesh, where all is uncouth and brutal,
A shore littered with the shells of a hundred crayfish
Beaten to death by a high sea upon the plains
Of smooth round stoners, greedily eaten by sea gulls,
Cleaned by the scurrying sea-lice, joining that other detritus,
The sepulchers of white and sapless trees
So dried and brittle that the mere sun sets them alight:
Both of them empty, both of them shapely and fine,
Merge in the total destruction. This legend.