The Widening Sky

 by Edward Hirsch

 

I am so small walking on the beach

at night under the widening sky.

The wet sand quickens beneath my feet

and the waves thunder against the shore. 

 

I am moving away from the boardwalk

with its colorful streamers of people

and the hotels with their blinking lights.

The wind sighs for hundreds of miles.

 

I am disappearing so far into the dark

I have vanished from sight.

I am a tiny seashell

that has secretly drifted ashore

 

and carries the sound of the ocean

surging through its body.

I am so small now no one can see me.

How can I be filled with such a vast love?