Sea Dreams

I grew up in the deep green sea,
attended school among starfish,
explored coral castles with slinky
squid, bought seashell necklaces
with sand dollars.

A child, dreaming, I thought,
I�m a mermaid.

Grown, I see more clearly.

I�m a dolphin:
sleek,
articulate,
one of a large family,

nothing to prove,
three quarters
of earth�s surface
mine with a flick of fin.

Return

I want to return to the white beach
where a tiny girl with pixie curls
grew up singing on the sand.

I want to see if warm sand, cool sea
bring her to me more clearly
than faded photographs.

I want to know if that child lives
in the woman I�ve become,
if I can return to myself. 

Nesting

I wish I�d
known how it would end
the first time
I saw her
building the small nest
in my wall.
I would have
knocked it down

right away.
It would have been much
easier
and kinder
than watching her build,
day by day,
back and forth,
tireless �

as bird shit
and twig bits puddled
on the ground.
She hated
me to come or go,
chided me
angrily
eyeing me.

Then silence,
marked by startled flight
when I came
too close to
her sacred hideout,
and I knew
her nestling
was thriving.

Secretly
watching from inside
my kitchen,
I never
imagined finding
that birdling
dead on the
ground today.

                                                                                                � Wiltshire

Loch Raven Review Spring 2006 — Vol. 2, No. 1
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