Robin Fulton

1937 / Isle of Arran, United Kingdom

Hearing The Sea

Heard my blood say to my ear, "just me,"
and my tinnitus, "I never tire."

Dreamt that Acker Bilk played a tune called
"Leo Fibonacci on the shore."

There were many crushed whorls to tread on,
a few perfect to keep and measure.

Does hubris make whelks build such armour
their lives in slime can never outlive?

We give the whelks a pride they can´t feel
and a cruelty that is all ours.

What if a godless dark once huddled
in, died from, the shell of York Minster?

There has been much interpretation
of the not-quite-silence that drowns out

footfalls and voices between such walls.
It´s like the sea we don´t hear in a conch.
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