Your secret is the dreamy way you wander
alone at the break of day

discovering seashells
along the shore

bedded in the sand,
enough to fill your ditty bag 

many of them chipped
and timeless—some not even shells 

but sea glass. Your eyes reveal a certain knack
of peering down the beach

curiously as you call for the shells
to come your way 

in that sing song birdlike voice
with your hop hop little dance of joy

and for some odd reason
it always works

as you stumble upon limitless volumes 
of treasures—often tread into exotic feathers

and end up using much of it
here and there

for fairy artwork, tokens of friendship
or scattering them back to wherever they came from.