Poem Choice and Discussion

On a Maine Beach
By Robley Wilson

Look, in these pools, how rocks are like worn change
Keeping the ocean’s mint-mark; barnacles
Miser on them; societies of snails
Hunch on their rims and think small thoughts whose strange
Salt logics rust like a mainspring, small dreams
Pinwheeling to a point and going dumb,
Small equations whose euphemistic sum
Stands for mortality. A thousand times
Tides swallow up such pools, shellfish and stone
Show green and yellow shade in groves of weed;
Rocks shrink, barnacles drink, snails think they bleed
In their trapped world. Here, when the sea is gone,
We find old coins glowing under the sky,
Barnacles counting them, snails spending slow
Round lifetimes half-awake. Beach rhythms flow
In circles. Perfections teach us to die.


My Explanation:

I originally was interested in this poem because it discusses the beach. Since I grew up near the ocean, I was inclined to choose this poem. But the verses have a dark secret. They speak of death and reflect on our inevitable mortality. Now I’m not a masochistic person or anything but let’s face it, we are all going to die someday. It’s a fact. You can eat as many vegetables as you want to stay healthy but that’s not going to stop a bus from running you over. Things happen. My dad died when I was only six years old. Death has always been in the back of my mind. Currently, my grandmother is in poor health. The entire family just seems to sit around with crossed fingers because death can’t be stopped. Death isn’t something that will go away. You can’t hide from it so you mind as well accept it.