There’s a shell on every beach
That’s from a different sea,
A sea that beats the blowing shores
Of all eternity.
So now I ask what you might ask –
How has this seashell come to be
From such a sea impossibly vast
To me?

And if that matters (and it does),
How might I take this seashell back
And know this shore as more than lore,
But as feet on fact?

It hears me ask, grows legs and runs!
A crab inside’s our first mystery,
But the larger one finds waves
And flees!
Now every shore I ever know
I’ll look for one shell of the sea,
And so I search on every beach
For all eternity.