Lost

Lost
07/07/03

Sudden gusts of silver, salty ocean winds
Bolt across the churning waves and to the upturned sand.
The fragile steps of youthful feet fall
Where the briny water meets the shell-ridden land.
Her hair, in swells, winds earthward like the sun,
Her paled blue eyes, the embodiment of a naive girl...
To her virtuous heart, clenched securely in hand,
Her most precious possession, is a perfect, gleaming pearl.
In all her bliss, bewitched by love’s uncertainty,
She pirouettes and leaps along the velvety beach
And thinks how beautiful are the ever stretching fingers
Of the foam before the waves, ‘til they begin their clawing reach.
In her enchanted stupor, captured in reflection’s brilliance,
The tumbling ocean lashes out and from her hand the pearl is tossed.
With eyes more filled with tears than the ocean is with wonders,
She keeps a mournful vigil until she knows it is forever lost.
Following the frothing breakers come the angels,
The fading whispers of their song reverberating from the sea...
Just as this radiant pearl is forever lost unto the ocean,
So is innocence lost to me.