New Poem: Listen

I wrote this over the course of the last few days.  It has been through several revisions and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.  Additional changes may be forthcoming, but for now, enjoy!

Listen

Beneath the whimper of the ocean there is nothing.

In a seashell gripped loosely in your hand,

No audible language is heard, no distant whispers

On the lips of waves, only the endless wind is sighing

Through the foaming surf that sinks between the sand. 

You offer me the pale shell, disinterested,

As though it were a telephone in which

There rings the dull horn of a smoke-veiled ship

That moves secretly through charted courses and

Whose call you’ve heard before but never understood.

In the muffled terms that often fall under my breath

As you pass, there is some sun-bleached speck of truth,

Some small grain hissing through the hourglass unseen,

A siren song that’s meant for you who hears the words,

But never stops to listen to what was sung.

So much moves past us unperceived in time,

Both spoken and unsaid; old messages drift

Toward the shore years later, quiet and insistent as

The oscillations of the lighthouse turret,

Never heard by wrecks before the glow is read.