The Widening Sky
I am so small walking on the beach at night under the widening sky. The wet sand quickens beneath my feet and the waves thunder against the shore. I am moving away from the boardwalk with its colorful streamers of people and the hotels with their blinking lights. The wind sighs for hundreds of miles. I am disappearing so far into the dark I have vanished from sight. I am a tiny seashell that has secretly drifted ashore and carries the sound of the ocean surging through its body. I am so small now no one can see me. How can I be filled with such a vast love?
From Lay Back the Darkness by Edward Hirsch Copyright © 2003 by Edward Hirsch. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.