Two fog-horns disagreed
About the note of grief.
One said it was the reef
To which all currents lead,
The other: no horizon,
No shadow, and no sun.
Off-white, ecru, dun,
The sands that shells bedizen
Shuffled beneath our feet.
All definition scumbled;
Millionaire real-estate
Foundered, unmoored. Down tumbled
The sky, pearl-grey and pale,
The sea broke into cloud,
(The fog horns owned aloud.)
Two hurts stood in grey-scale,
And only a fathom apart,
Yet fathomless it seemed,
The dissonance, athwart
Which no lighthouse beamed.
What wasn’t lost was blurred:
Only what was spoken
Or what heard, could betoken
Driftwood, sand-dollar, bird.
And where erosion shelved,
Erasure of pier and plinth,
The interval hung unresolved
In a far-flung minor seventh.