A while ago I wrote a poem about a beautiful empty shell. It was a meditation on memory, on fullness and emptiness, but I was also trying to catch the light in the shell itself, or catch a gleam of it in the mirror of my words. Then just the other day I came upon this brilliant painting by Anna Todd, she catches just thel ‘opalescent shimmering of pearl’ I was trying to descrbe. She has given me permission to post her painting here alongside my poem. check out her amazing site through the link on her name.
shell with marbles Anna Todd
Shell
I am alone, my fingers touch this shell
Of memory. I trace a graceful swirl
Of green and blue, like ripples on the swell,
Catching the light before they lapse and spill
And spend themselves on sand in soft caresses.
And I remember slowly savoured kisses,
Like moving in slow motion through deep water
That clarifies and washes us with light,
A light that burnishes this empty shell
With opalescent shimmerings of pearl.
Malcolm Guite 