Something

Something
made this yellow-white lace-mass
that the sea has brought to the shore
and left—

a little like popcorn stuck to itself —
or a ball of prized lace-strings rolled up tight —
or a handful of fingerling shells pasted together
each with a tear where something, perhaps,

fled into the sea. I brought it home
out of the uncombed morning and consulted
among my books. I do not know
what to call this sharpest desire

to discover a name,
but there it is, suddenly, clearly
illustrated on the page, alerting my old heart
to the arrival of another strange and singular

moment of happiness: to know that it was
the egg case of an ocean shell, the
left-handed whelk,
which, in its proper season,

spews forth its progeny in such
glutenous and faintly
glimmering fashion; each one
tears itself free

and what is left rides to shore, one more
sweet-as-honey riddle for the wanderer
whose tongue is agile, whose mind
in the world's riotous plenty,

wants syntax, connections, lists,
and most of all names to set beside the multitudinous
stars, flowers, sea creatures, rocks, trees.
The egg case of the left-handed whelk

sits on my shelf in front of, as it happens, Blake.
Sometimes I dream
that everything in the world is here, in my room,
in a great closet, named and orderly,

and I am here too, in front of it,
hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness—
and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing;
and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.