Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens

Amanda Hamilton poem: “I must let go now. Let you go. Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going. I drop the line And watch you drift away. “All along You thought The fiery current Of your lover’s breast Pulled you to the deep. But it was my heart-tide Releasing you To float adrift With seaweed.”

Faces change with life’s toll, but eyes remain a window to what was,

We were the victims, not the guilty.”

Galway Kinnell that Ma had underlined in her book: I have to say I am relieved it is over: At the end I could feel only pity For that urge toward more life. . . . Goodbye.

Let’s face it, a lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.

Amanda Hamilton poem: Broken Gull of Brandon Beach Winged soul, you danced the skies, And startled dawn with shrilling cries. You followed sails and braved the sea, Then caught the wind back to me. You broke your wing; it dragged the land And etched your mark upon the sand. When feathers break, you cannot fly, But who decides the time to die? . . . You disappeared, I know not where. But your wing-marks still linger there. A broken heart cannot fly, But who decides the time to die?

Amanda Hamilton’s verses: “Never underrate the heart, Capable of deeds The mind cannot conceive. The heart dictates as well as feels. How else can you explain The path I have taken, That you have taken The long way through this pass?”

Amanda Hamilton: “You came again, Blinding my eyes Like the shimmer of sun upon the sea. Just as I feel free The moon casts your face upon the sill. Each time I forget you Your eyes haunt my heart and it falls still. And so farewell Until the next time you come, Until at last I do not see you.”