What An Island Knows

Low tide murmurs as a bass voice receding,
Revealing the survivors in its wake,
A broken box of fish from the harbour mouth,
Seaweed limp and passive on the rocks,
A causeway clear across such dead men’s fingers.
Lank and torpid, despairing to the touch.
Cross to the island of stone,
Rockpools with sealife still swimming,
Crabs, lobsters, jellyfish, barnacles,
Small voices indeed to face the sea.

Beware the voice of the sea changing,
Uplifting in tenor as the water is quick,
Surreptitiously slipping around behind the back,
Slowly filling the void between field and island,
Lapping eagerly at the dark rocks.
Calling dead fingers to rise and wave in the tide,
Saluting their brief resurrection.
Beware, any caught on the turn,
The tide turning its coat as sun turns winter,
Fickleness to bring death, if it can.