2009 John F. Whitcomb Memorial Poetry Award Winner

Melanie Walker’s ‘The Sea Stone’

 

Earlier this year, in a competition sponsored by the Friends of the Harvard Public Library Melanie Walker of the Bromfield School in Harvard won the John F. Whitcomb Memorial Poetry Award. Melanie is the ninth winner of this award which was established in 2001 to honor John F. Whitcomb, a doctor, part-time poet, and an active member of the Friends of the Harvard Public Library whose love of poetry and the Library led him to initiate and present amateur and professional poetry programs in town. 

Originally written for Melanie’s own enjoyment, ‘The Sea Stone’ is a poem that reflects her love of the ocean. She likes the idea that the sea stone represents a lack of control as it travels in the surf. It will “live” longer than us and while it is helpless, it is also spellbinding. It watches, observes and listens, as do we; it is a stone with a soul, but cannot stay. 

Melanie has been writing since her middle school days. After Bromfield, she plans to go on to college and major in English or creative writing. She enjoys writing fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction and aspires to be a writer and a teacher. Melanie lives on Withington Lane with her mother Deborah, brother Nicholas and their dog Brandy and she enjoys spending time on Cape Cod. 


The Sea Stone

 

The stone is weather beaten,

Made smooth by the wind,

The once jagged edges

Of that pearl moon rock,

Tossed gently at the fingertips of the tide

As they touch the toes of the shore.

It is the milk stone,

A face among sand,

Touched lightly by rain

And shaped by the violence

Of waves…

Yet colored by the calm

Of foggy days,

And the lusty harmonies of sea birds

And sand foxes,

With their alien screams;

Oh,

How the stone shivers

At the sound of their voices…

Those lonely foxes,

Calling to the sea.

 

 But it is handed away

Spending time in window sills,

And pockets,

And little garden circles;

A piece of trapped beauty

A stone with a heart beat

A stone with a soul…

Of the sorrows and the joys

Of her eternal shore;

And it thinks here

Away from her rhythm,

It watches, observes,

In solitude it listens,

But it cannot stay.

For she pulls it back,

A trinket of the sea

A jewel of her brooch

A dove-white thread

Upon the hem of her gown,

A moon rock,

A piece of the sky