The Enigma Of The Shells

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