FRAGMENT OF A STAR

The sea does not accept our arguments.
I learned this as a child: my father often
Took me to the coast, told stories of
Pirates and shipwrecks, treasure maps and gold,
And one great ship which was unsinkable,
Built in his lifetime, which sank anyway.
The sea, I gathered, was to be respected,
Its ways mysterious, its alterations sudden.

I once caught a starfish in a net. The oceans
Washed up a fragment of a star
One summer afternoon. The creature
Shrank from my probing fingers
And when I turned it over
Its underside was whiter than the sand.
Fascinated, frightened
I put it back into the water
To feed and be fed on in an endless cycle,
Lost, but perfectly preserved in memory,
Internalised beyond significance

Tony Lewis-Jones