As promised, here is your weekly Mondays With Muddy post. It’s the last week of National Poetry Month, after which I’ll return to the manuscript from which I’ve been posting. But this week, I give you Beatrice Allen Page’s poem, “Dilemma.”

Dilemma

Whether to walk along the beach

with eyes focused on the sand

where the outgoing tide

leaves odds and ends behind,

looking for a rare shell,

a bit of sea-polished glass,

gnarl of driftwood for the fireside,

or possibly – just possibly – to find

a white stone,

clean, cool, smooth as stark bone,

on which is written one’s secret name…

Or whether to fling the gaze far out and up

like a kite, letting it fly free

beyond self, beyond earth,

toward infinity…

Always the decision to make

between the near and the far:

to look for the treasure within reach

or strain one’s eyes toward an invisible star.