The wind-chime porch faces ocean; it stirs. The back-door cellar shivers.
Oh, don't know: it must be far past compline even, the moon slipping,
And somewhere down the evening slope the heavy conch is climbing
From retreating waves; the cellar winces, whispers,

Muffled by His own thick mould-ridden door, beside the coastal grass,
Beneath, behind the rustling shadow of the home
In which all gave of each in marriage, now asleep; the groan,
Unheard, murmurs with the conch shell's groping path

-Though, even so, the chimes of hurricanes in motion,
Men, drunken, sleep, begin to murmur in the house beside the ocean,
Conch unobserved this evening, no share of cellar-door's care spoken.


-r