At Low Tide...

... when Water opened
her workshop, her shining hands unrolled
a fabric so light I saw straight down
to the loom on which it was born --
long ropes of sands rigid like muscles
on the sea's floor, seeded with
ghostly pebbles polished like eggs
waiting in weedy nests
and a crab claw hugging its shadow
and the pleated rim of a clam,
till the sea threw out a net
that spun itself from the breath of the waves,
in threads so fine I saw its shine
in leaf and stone and the sunset's plumage
and the light that was always there,
waiting for me to find it.

By Nancy Willard