A Note In a Bottle
It was an old brown bottle with a cork stuck in top
That I saw half buried in the sand
On a remote stretch of beach near my Pacific Northwest home
That I dug out with a stick and my hand.
I pulled out the cork and removed a note from inside
With handwriting that was old and faded;
A letter that was written over fifty years ago
Nineteen Fifty Eight on the top it was dated.
“I am writing this note and casting it out to sea
For no one in particular but mostly for me.
I am with child but with no husband by my side;
For months it has grown in me and every night I have cried.
My family sent me here to Washington state,
I’ve ruined their reputation so this is my fate.
I will do my best to raise my child right,
But it’s a future I face with terror and fright.
Should you find this bottle and read my little tale
Please say a prayer for me;
I could use your support so that I don’t fail
From the other side of the sea.”
As it turns out the bottle didn’t travel far,
In fact it was caste from this very shore.
Fifty two years later I recognize the handwriting -
I’ve seen it so many times before.
It’s the same handwriting on notes I took to school
And on every birthday card I saved;
It’s the same handwriting from the woman I called Mother
And last year buried in a grave.
I never knew the story of how I came to be
And, frankly, never thought to ask;
I was just a bastard child of a wonderful mother
Whose story I just found in this flask.
Copyright © Joe Flach | Year Posted 2010
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