Down to the long stretch of sea
Ned Doffer walks each day,
To seek,
To scan,
To act on His plan
Of helping the lost find The Way.
With arched back, bending low,
He examines each shell
To check,
To see,
If any spot there be
Which would damn it to Hell?
Two, perhaps three He may place
In the palm of His Hallowed Hand,
To possess,
To crave,
And in the end to save
Them from the natural fate of beach sand
But what of the countless shells
Ned does not choose,
To rise,
To lift,
Upward to drift,
Is it truly those who lose?
Brief Case Poems (1973-1979)