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What’s Left Behind Along the beach, shells beyond measure piled like abandoned treasure gleam like stained glass in the sun. There’s something here for everyone: flat as coins or sharp as spears, smooth like olives, whorled like ears, milky moons, transparent chips, oval bowls like little ships, multicolored minarets, scripts in alien alphabets, stripes and dots and rainbow swirls, bright as rubies, opals, pearls. A billion creatures long since dead left these jewels on the sea bed, and tides at work for evermore dragged them slowly to the shore. When I am gone, I hope by grace to leave a small, smooth, shining trace.
Andrew Sprung is a children’s poet, published in Cricket, Ranger Rick, Greenchild Magazine, The New York Times and elsewhere, who returned to the craft after the birth of his first grandchild in late 2023.