Shell Collector's Dreams

Mornings early, he walks alone,
even if alongside his wife.

Like pieces of his life, the sea has struck
in fragmentary coin
a kind of wealth
that is to him as precious as health.

At night, he dreams of names he cannot name
and can’t recall the faces.
All trace of having been has disappeared.

What appears is worn, distorted,
as if reported
from wracks of weed washed up
on shores of sleep.

Like wayward sheep,
his memories trail home in bits
and pieces,
the feelings that he seeks
completely gone.

But today the sky is clear.
The tide is strong.
The tracks he leaves are smeared
and almost gone.

It is his kind of day. What can go wrong?

The shards are red and yellow,
some blue and black,
some sharp and especially jagged:
he picks them up.

He'll add them to the jar,
his work of art
that catches the fragment beauty
of lives
momentarily successful,

caught in the light,
reflecting it back to the sun:
the source of life.