Records 1937

Little orange cone shell

Poises on edge

Of the Jaluit dock where

Amelia sits

After being captured

By Japanese soldiers

With her navigator Fred,

Following the downing

Of their plane

Onto coral atoll--

Little orange cone shell

Poises on edge

Of Jaluit dock,

Is not visible in clandestine

Photo of scene

Being taken from afar--

But there's the cargo ship,

Kōshū,

Towing Amelia's broken 

Electra on a barge,

As the injured Noonan

Grasps signpost on dock,

His hairline bright

In tropic sun--

Amelia stares at her plane,

Her bob-cut

A signature, her rounded

Shoulders I share,

That short sleeved-shirt

With bunched collar,

She often wore at home--

Little orange conus,

Records its journey

On the outside of its shell--

Triangles like pointers

Document waves and growth;

Amelia and Fred being brave,

Were fixed in brief moment

By recorder,

With many more clues

Through the years,

But we are told to not believe

Our eyes, to not connect sequences--

If a little shell can do it, why can't we?

Laura Stickney 2025

Notes:

Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan vanished

on the last leg of their round-the-world flight,

July, 1937.

Top photo-- is a covert image of Jaluit dock,

Marshall Islands, taken by an unknown

photographer.

Middle photo-- is right-half detail of the above image

showing larger ship Kōshū beyond dock towing Electra

Plane, Amelia sitting on dock's edge, her back facing 

photographer, and Fred, farthest to left on dock's far

corner near electricity poll.

Conus shell--type of shell found at Jaluit Atoll.

Shell patterns are a diary of the animal's 

life that can be read.

Laura Stickney, poet, has researched the story

of Amelia Earhart for many years.