The whispering wind that would not rescind,
spoke nothing of love,
nor mutter of sin.
To strong to be breezy, but never a gale.
The whispering wind is sailing away.
Out on a wave with moonlight above,
the whispering wind spoke nothing of love.
No chatter of joy,
nor mutter of pain.
The whispering wind has nothing to gain

Standing in a queue that never moves.
Where people while away there time
and queerhawks always sing the blues.
Songs they churn like echoes in the wind.
About ghost-ships lost without a course
that never should have sailed.
Never should have ventured
out past the Cape of Hope.
As the Sun that lit the way went out
to watch the Moon and Stars elope.

He would walk there in the evening,
alone, and happy to be so for a while.
Wandering the beach and his mind,
kicking the useless flotsam aside.

Wandering still through the flotsam in his head.
Picking through what's useful and not.
Remembering the things he thought forgot,
remembering the words wished never said.
And then the wash of the waves would invoke a balance,
as if he was washing parts of the day away.
The sound of the sea would be calming,
like something his mother would simply say.

There were parts of his soul that were tired,
he knew, because he felt it reach deep down inside.
Down where the soul is on fire,
washing away with the advancing tide.
His eyes would lock on the lighthouse,
illuminating his face every once in a turn.
Sand would fall through his fingers,
he looked at the flames and all of the cinders.
Trying to gauge what could not be learned.
Just trying to gauge what could not be heard.

"Put this shell to your ear and listen,
tell me what you hear."
I tell him "its the ocean",
even though it's nowhere near.
My young head filled with wonder,
as the waves flow through my mind.
How is it that I hear it now?,
so far from Ballyheigue.
Those Sundays spilling ice-cream
in the back of your old car.
I drink coke and he drinks porter,
well worked fingers stained with tar.
Telling tales of saints n scoundrels,
men who worked the coast.
Its when I hold that old shell now,
I think I miss you most.