The sea is awake and the sand asleep. Waves wash over the uncombed glittering grains with generosity. Over and over they move in tandem, in rhythm—the washing in and out of great salty waters. My heart stings as the saline potion washes clean the wounds of yesterday. Collapsed and cradled in the arms of the shore with sun beating down, I surrender with relief to this healing process.

The waves have spilled abandoned shell-house, ocean life gifts upon the ocean’s white sandy shoulders. I am rich with this ample offering. My heart swells with new healing strength.

I imagine the footprints of the dreamers, word makers–poets–before me upon this magnificent coast that are long gone and washed into the depths of the ocean bottom. Their words live on, echo from the ages, in the foamy waves and sparkle upon the sand. Here the Creator’s exact visage shimmered upon the vast horizon-that space of mysterious melding between earth and heaven. They did not know His name but recognized His form and they wrote what they saw.

Some of their thoughts have been crafted into lofty, lifting verses and are now tarnished from the salt and just need a quick polish. Others are worn or torn, and some are old, hardly legible. I picked up a few good letters to lengthen today, but they will not be displayed on the white shelves in my house as ocean presents. I will carefully care for them in a large pink conch sea shell for safekeeping. The kind I loved as a child.

I’ll bring them out letter by letter for further examination. When the stars shine on the inky blue waters of velvet midnight, I’ll refurbish and rearrange them to use over and over. For they are mightier than the raging sea, violent wind, and crashing waves that will surely come. The words left upon the sea, pointing the way to everlasting hope and home, are courage emboldened and will stand against and conquer the storms of tomorrow.

Bonnie Saul Wilks