C
               for Polly


c sounds like sea & see 
& looks like a wave curling
across the world's sweet chaos

c starts our name,
a circle with the gate left open
to wandering & possibility

c collects, cautions, catches 
us when we trip & calls
our name in a cursive crowd

an, when you add a c,
moves on to opportunity;
becomes supportive, with an f,
an admirer knowing the odds,
welcoming, c-like, the challenge

a friend found this c on the beach at Hatteras; 
  
one sunny day in the salty air, i picked the shell 
from the beach on Sanibel and wrote this poem 
in the wavelip slap of my mind, between the c's 
my ears make, composing the water's co-opera

___________
Nov 1996/June 2011 -- poem attached to a perfect driftwood C, shell too



© Copyright 2011 Peter Chapman

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