{"id":1011371,"date":"2023-04-27T18:08:53","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T23:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=1011371&preview=true&preview_id=1011371"},"modified":"2025-03-03T12:31:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T18:31:31","slug":"within-a-shell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/within-a-shell\/","title":{"rendered":"Within a Shell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within a Shell<\/h2>\n
I plucked one perfect, mottled sea shell\r\nFrom the crushed bones of its ancestors; their grit\r\nThe sunkissed sand beneath my feet\r\nSoaked through, with ocean's briny tang, and hard, \r\nUnlike the powdery, pillowed dunes\r\nThat can't remember what it's like to feel the sea.\r\n\r\nI wondered at its journey, how it ended at the sea\r\nI held within my hand, a home, now just a shell\r\nHow many years from sea to shore to dunes - \r\nWho says the spineless creatures don't have grit?\r\nWhenever tempted by the thought that life is hard\r\nI think how hard it must've been - from fins to feet. \r\n\r\nThe Little Mermaid envies me my feet,\r\nBut happily, I would slip into the sea.\r\nDiscernment of His master plan is hard\r\nBut God and Science aren't at war - the shell\r\nThat landed at my feet, rubbed smooth by grit\r\nDivine, tells timeless stories, buried in the dunes.\r\n\r\nA thousand million years of tales lie hidden in the dunes\r\nAs happy children dig, build castles in the sand, and bury tiny feet\r\nTheir soft skin damp, their chubby legs adorned with grit\r\nThis moment's all they know of the eternal sea\r\nExperience, tight-clasped secret held within its shell\r\nAt least today's too kind to tell them \"Life is hard.\"\r\n\r\nSome day, too soon they'll learn that lesson: that it's hard -\r\nThat castles made of sand must crumble and return to dunes.\r\nBut as the children venture from the safety of their shells\r\nExploring, till they find the chosen path for righteous feet,\r\nThe path that leads from sea to shining sea\r\nWill give them strength of character, and grit. \r\n\r\nRough edges will be polished smooth by ever-finer grit\r\nAs youth meets all the challenges of life, however hard\r\nAnd in old age, reflecting by the ever-changing sea\r\nThey'll pluck that mottled, perfect shell from sparkling dunes\r\nUnrushed, they'll rise, to rinse their gnarled, sandy feet, \r\nAnd throw it, heavenward, to home, that shell.\r\n\r\nRelentless, the eternal sea will tumble hard against the grit - that shell\r\nNow one with all the other grains of sand will keep us grounded, steady, on our feet, \r\nSo one day, we can join our bones and stories underneath the sunkissed dunes.\r\n<\/pre>\n
\u2014 Holly Jahangiri<\/em><\/p>\n
Author’s note:<\/strong> Lord help me, I think I’ve found a form more onerous than the villanelle<\/a>. At least when trying, near midnight, to finish it.<\/p>\n
Today’s Poet<\/h2>\n
I learned this week that my application to the Summer Writers Institute at the University of St. Thomas<\/a> was accepted.<\/p>\n
[P]articipants will meet at UST and hear from distinguished writers of poetry and fiction, and engage in seminars on art and beauty, Catholicism and literature, and the craft of writing. They will also get counsel and help with their own work in lively creative writing workshops.<\/p>\n
Between the evening public readings with masters of the art, the intense seminars and workshops, and the good company at meals, participants will experience that most elusive thing:\u00a0a literary community intended to deepen and strengthen their own work while also welcoming them into the great literary and cultural tradition of the Church.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So, in honor of that, today’s featured poet is James Matthew Wilson<\/strong>, who will be leading the poetry workshops. Read more about him here<\/a>.<\/p>\n