Congratulations to – Pamela Martinez of Capitola, CA
Pamela’s prize is Lunch for two at Zelda’s – on the Esplanade in Capitola
SEA GLASS
The bottle sits beautiful in our lives
Catching the light, we admire it
Even as we begin to know it,
Our first year of marriage.
We are a cozy duo
Making daily memories
Stuffing it full of passion and
Our unshakable faith,
Believing in forever.
Children born cause us
To dust off the bottle periodically–
Admiring the depth of color they add even as
We begin to connect sporadically,
Hurrying love into late night moments.
Soon, our bottle is shoved aside
Taken over by soccer awards, work schedules.
We succumb to the whirlwind
Of our too cluttered life.
.
The bottle eventually shatters
At our careless neglect.
We toss its glittering fragments
Into the ocean of hurt and anger
That has become our home.
Tempted at thoughts of leaving
Not able to visualize staying
We are housemates not lovers
Married in name, not heart.
But time sands us.
We recognize faults in ourselves
Learn the power of forgiveness
Open the past to understand the now
Smoothing our way to peace
By daily choosing to hear
The voice of commitment whispering
“Stay for the beauty—for the forever.”
And we do.
Now we are left with these pieces
Fragments soft and gentle to the touch
Clarity clouded by the wearing of our battles
Colors muted by time
Treasures of a different sort
Now held together by an outside source,
They catch a light that is not our own
And remind us of where we have been.
And what He has done.
– Pamela Martinez –
I have always loved sea glass collecting (and now do some art with it!) but this poem came out of the pain and difficulty of this last year of our marriage, which we both would say we barely survived. One of the most difficult things to do is stay when everything we believed in looks shattered.
I’m thankful that God allowed us to weather the storm, and this poem is my way of saying we are on the mend. Not fixed, but looking for the beauty from the pieces.