A Light To Do Shellwork By: Poems by Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez

A Light To Do Shellwork By: Poems

by Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez

A Light to Do Shellwork By received a Kirkus Reviews Best Book Award in 2022.

A LIGHT TO DO SHELLWORK BY

For my father, Joseph John Moreno,
June 5, 1897–August 15, 1991

One day
        all of life catapulted into one 
day            one moment
of sunlight  
filtering through a high bedroom window
framed by blue curtains 
filtering through the waiting
of the grownups
        sunlight
and the laughter of children outside
warming my father’s
dying

My father turns his head to acknowledge the sun

            The light      the light
                     he says
                           and the light within

            It’s a good light to do shellwork by

The ocean sang in my father’s hands
abalone pendants shimmered rainbows
from the ears of pretty girls
and shellwork dotted driftwood carvings
            cowrie shells, cone shells, volute shells
            red, black, white, blue, brown, green shells
the life they once held
sacred
old stories etched on
the lifeline of my father’s palm

I hold my father’s hand
my own shellwork     words
my poet’s eye noting the light
            how through the bedroom door
the ears of fresh white corn piled
on the kitchen table
harvest the afternoon sun
            how light shines through a glass of water
touches
my mother’s white hair as she leans
to embrace my father
            the hush of twilight
and how the sunset
like a trail of wild lupines 
or the tracings on seashells
tells stories
of our origin
as it lights up the sky
with fire