By RAHN ADAMS
Like bones in the desert, / shells of all shapes and sizes — / lightning whelks, moon snails and sand dollars — / litter the beach strand after stormy weather.
They are easy pickings / after any storm off the Brunswick coast, / but especially following hurricanes / like Hazel in ’52, Hugo in ’89, Fran in ’96, Floyd in ’99.
I was there for Hugo / and years later for Fran as well, / needing a long ladder after them both / to hop down from the top of the dunes to the hard sand below.
Seashells were everywhere — / layers of them lying with their kind, / as if Zeus and Hera had decided / to run a rummage sale of Poseidon’s gifts from the sea.
If I had come across cockles / arranged to say “86 47” or the like, / I wouldn’t have been surprised; / I would have guessed that God’s own fool had just taken a hike.
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Confused? Read 1 Corinthians 3:18-20.