Seashell Voice (long version)

We were a thousand miles from the shore,
in some grain-growing state, some prairie town.
I saw a seashell in some dusty store
and picked it up-- and could not put it down.

There was no water anywhere around
and yet the surf was rolling in my ear.
A long-forgotten, once-familiar sound,
I thought I smelled the ocean, salt as tears.

Impossible, it seemed the sea drew near,
and waves came whispering along the sand.
"Remember me, oh wandering child, most dear
and keep this echo with you on dry land."

No shell forgets the home that it once knew.
Would that my heart would echo half so true.