Amber

“The Hermit Crab

Once I looked inside
the darkness
of a sheel folded like a pastry,
and there was a fancy face-

or almost a face-
it turned away
and frisked up its brawny forearms
so quickly

against the light
and my looking in
I scarcely had time to see it,
gleaming

under the pure white roof
of old calcium
When I set it down, it hurried
along the tideline

of the sea,
which was slashing along as usual,
shouting and hissing
toward the future,

turning its back
with every tide on the past,
leaving the shore littered
ever morning

with ornaments of death-
what a pearly rubble
from which to choose a house
like a white flower-

and what a rebellion
to leap into it
and hold on,
connecting everything,

the past to the future-
which is of course the miracle-
which is the only argument there is
against the sea.”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One