The Enigma Of The Shells Poem by Sheena Blackhall

When I was small I was a living loom
Tilting my hands like a cat's cradle
While grandmother wound the wool
Into a widening ball

Tom Thumbs in the garden
Rioted over the path
A rumba of sunny flounces
Wetting my tiny ankles

Peony roses eased their velvet waistbands
Cracks of shadows, like pleats between their petals

Then there was the enigma of the shells
Devoid of occupants, as if the horned snails
Had glided into the air and disappeared

So many mysteries of loom, of shadow, of shell
Finding my thread in the greater pattern
A Shirley Temple girl in somebody else's frock