Moon Shell
© 2010 Katherine Williams
"Moon Shell" appears in
Ripple Effect (2017)
Carol Bass, Ed.
Maine Authors Publishing
The ghazal is an ancient Arabic form of love song, in unrelated couplets unified by a rhyme and refrain, and placing the author’s name or nickname in the last stanza.
© 2010 Katherine Williams
"Moon Shell" appears in
Ripple Effect (2017)
Carol Bass, Ed.
Maine Authors Publishing
The ghazal is an ancient Arabic form of love song, in unrelated couplets unified by a rhyme and refrain, and placing the author’s name or nickname in the last stanza.
Grandmother-breast, blue-veined dun, moon shell.
Fiddle-head, cyclone, galacticized skeleton, moon shell.
Sand washed underfoot spills out, spills in.
Rock-hard water, calculus of carbon, moon shell.
Light-rays divide and spin through channels of bone.
Shadowy eye of whale, of Edisto Indian, moon shell.
Caress of crab-claw and whelk, of mountain stone.
Futility lunges at muscular ocean, moon shell.
Are dolphins’ whistles etched in the growth-rings?
No—oceans mirrored in the ears of children, moon shell.
The Druid shifts it hand-to-hand: eternal spiral/failed circle?
Christening-gown, fortress, bungalow, coffin, moon shell.
Fiddle-head, cyclone, galacticized skeleton, moon shell.
Sand washed underfoot spills out, spills in.
Rock-hard water, calculus of carbon, moon shell.
Light-rays divide and spin through channels of bone.
Shadowy eye of whale, of Edisto Indian, moon shell.
Caress of crab-claw and whelk, of mountain stone.
Futility lunges at muscular ocean, moon shell.
Are dolphins’ whistles etched in the growth-rings?
No—oceans mirrored in the ears of children, moon shell.
The Druid shifts it hand-to-hand: eternal spiral/failed circle?
Christening-gown, fortress, bungalow, coffin, moon shell.