A Shell In My Pocket Poem by Neil Stewart McLeod

I went down to the sea today
To the ceaseless sea and the sand,
Where waves churned out across the shore
And its breath poured out on the land.
My mind was filled with the thrill of the call
Of memory's endless rhyme,
And all I need is the song on the air
And a shell in my pocket and time.

The sound of each wave pouring in
As the last wave whispers away,
Produces the music on the air
An unending sibilant sway,
And the smell and the sound and the sight of the sea
Stretching out to the edge of the sky,
And its breath on my skin is all I need
As time goes silently by.

The shell in my pocket reminds me when
I stooped on the shore and the sand,
Of a time gone by like an ebbing tide
When I plucked it up with my hand,
And the sun in the sky when its arc was high
Before tumbling down to the west,
And the hours that have flown like the life I've known
When the shell in my pocket is pressed.

From the book 'A Shell In My Pocket' Amazon
and the album.