People of time's salutations,
my love is gathering seashells
by that hilled windy gathering place the sea
(like dim worlds vexed with sound in the stuck conch,
to undo this day the scaly wrongs
that scuttle in the soul's sea);
for gull-winged griefs that drop their vowels
on spat hills of light,
my love is gathering portents like sea-made money
for the truths found their in untruth,
and hearing them there, I see them there:

Summer folk that come from cold
to these great gathering hills and find
one breasted ounce of ocean silver
to keep like crying
know that taut pants cringing came,
the color of kisses,
scattered on the sand grains like arms and legs.
People of time's salutations,
this shell and ear will bray there
for the weeped hills that leaving love labored.

Folk of autumn come from fear,
wracked by youth,
grow old there where the hills recede --
gather dust of water to glow the sun over
with knowing that came too late.
Sad gone days lean to and fro
in the salutating tide
that tugs the land for lack of care.
People of time's salutations,
this conch and ear will hear them scratch
as the days go out to sea.

The morning folk that come from shadow
gather wand watered proverbs in the still light.
Great hills for these mad people
who froth like waves for the sayings of ages.
People of time's salutations,
though eternities implode like new suns
in their slow gatherings,
shell and breath can not blow them out
beyond sound's ill reach
where the sea goes endlessly
rocking and mocking their finitudes.

The folk of evening come from labor,
their wasted souls on hill and sullied waves
dropped like shells in wrong places.
Muscles matted on sanddollar days
yield no virtue's wages.
Work is a shark's tooth for the weary.
People of time's salutations,
shell and ear will hear them breathe
though the sun going down can not.

Shell and ear for these splay sounds
that daunt and dabble
(by a sea of hilly days go on.)
But to pity and praise this great endeavour,
my love is seashell gathering
by that same great sea
while the waves go pithily out
on this hill and moneyed water
like thoughts and implications.
People of time's salutations,
this conch and ear will trumpet eternities
in the long-winded tides that walk there.