O 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 there 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. O 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. O 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. O 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. O 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. O People of time’s salutations, this conch and ear will trumpet eternities in the long-winded tides that walk there.