by Kate Coombs
We used to be rocks,
we used to be stones.
We stood proud as castles,
altars, and thrones.
Once we were massive,
looming in rings,
holding up temples
and posing as kings.
Now we grind and we grumble,
humbled and grave,
at the touch of our breaker
and maker, the wave.
Copyright © 2012 Kate Coombs. From the book Water Sings Blue. Chronicle Books. Reprinted by permission of the author.
This poem from my collection of ocean poems, Water Sings Blue, recalls that sand is made up of billions of tiny rocks that used to be much larger rocks. It took a very long time for them to become sand! I had noticed that collections of ocean poems often talk only about ocean animals, and I wanted to include poems about the sand, driftwood, and waves. Can you find the play on words in the last stanza?
Write Your Own Poem: Write a poem about something that has changed shape. Write about the object in the first person as someone in a new shape thinking about its old shape. You might want to write about man-made objects such as pots that used to be clay, chairs that used to be trees, or motor oil that used to be prehistoric plants and animals. Or you can write about natural changes, for example tomatoes that started out as seeds or butterflies that used to be caterpillars. When you think about it, you will find that much of what’s around you used to have a different shape. Your poem does not have to rhyme or be written in four-line stanzas. It can also have a different tone. The sand in “Sand’s Story” sounds sad or cranky about the change, but your poem could be funny, excited, or even scary.
Kate Coombs writes picture books, middle grade fiction, and poetry. She grew up in California near the ocean, where she used to boogie board with her brothers and sisters. She likes to step on dry autumn leaves and thinks frogs are really funny. Her first poetry book, Water Sings Blue, won the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award for 2012.