sea stones
line my back porch railing
salmon ivory and slate
how I yearn now return
to where I found them

Seems appropriate that my first post should be a poem about 'sea stones', hence the name of this blog, and also fitting that I should retrieve one of the first tanka poems I ever wrote (with a bit of revision of course).

I like this poem because it speaks to the cyclical theme so often found in tanka, in nature and in the human experience. The older I get, the more I find myself returning to the simple things; also the more I question our taking things away from their natural places. This poem speaks to both, returning the stones to their home and also the speaker returning to the place where she found the stones, a place of beauty that can never really be kept or emulated by the kept objects. Just the same, we are all collectors and even aware of beauty's mutability, by keeping the stones we hope to be reminded of the beauty we witnessed first hand. And the cycle repeats.