The seashore of life
is no place to look for treasures
here is but sand and pebbles
tide-battered shells
fragments of mussels
sunbaked seaweeds
fallen leaves, broken twigs
shreds of seared branches
and strange enough
even torn pages
of castaway
goodbye love-letters


a witness
to time's history
and its ravages
a testament of
mankind's sad
and silent chapters

if you should walk by
in the dead of night
you would hear
it singing the dirge
of unfulfilled lovers

of perished dreams
of sunken hopes
of painful despairs
in bitter sobs
and muted whispers

feel, oh feel well
the pulse of its melancholy
listen, oh listen
to its wild heart-beats
in wild tremours
imagine, oh image
how it howls
in its raging tempers

enquire, oh enquire
where it nestles

its home is none other
than the deluge
of the tattered heart-
the most tearful metaphor
of all known metaphors.