The Gift

After the wind-bruised sea
  furrowed itself back 
    into the folds of blue, I found
       in the black wrack

a shell called the Neptune - 
  tawny and white
    spherical,
       with a tail

and a tower
  and a dark door,
    and all of it
       no larger

than my fist.
  It looked, you might say, 
    very expensive.
       I thought of its travels

in the Atlantic's
  wind-pounded bowl
    and wondered
       that it was still intact.

Ah yes, there was
  that door
    that held only the eventual, inevitable
       emptiness.

...

There's that - there's always that.
  Still, what a house
    to leave behind!
       I held it

like the wisest of books
  and imagined
    its travels toward my hand.
       And now, your hand.

("The Gift", Mary Oliver, printed in Devotions, 2017)