Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest

Across the Sea
by Carissa Faulk

TwEnty-Second Contest
third Place

We would run about the block,
gaping smiles, missing teeth,
freckled faces, rosy cheeks,
and you would come out to greet us
on slow faltering feet,
and would sit as we gathered around,
your crown of white curls bobbing,
as you told us of the days
when you were young.

You told us of your time in Rome
when you met the grey-haired Pope,
and Germany and England during the war,
and China, where the people
were delighted by your fair eyes. 

And you spun for us golden tales 
of the worlds that you have seen;
of the Orient, and Europe,
and long forgotten islands,
and places of which we could only dream. 

But my favorite story you told
was not in a far away land,
but over the scraggly mountains,
just a few miles down the road,
at the rocky, lonely beach

where your grandpa used to take you
when you were just a girl
with a gaping smile, missing teeth,
a freckled face, and rosy cheeks. 
And as you picked the seashells off the shore
he spun golden tales for you
of worlds you had never seen;
of the Orient, and Europe, 
and long forgotten islands,
and places of which you could only dream;
places where he had been,
across the sea.

About the Author
Carissa is an English major at California Lutheran University, and has a blog at http://bestillandknowheis.blogspot.com/.