Blue wall fading in the distance.
Coral stems thrusting to the sunlight, from blueness into gold,
Then failing;
Falling as broken blocks and slowly trickling sand
To deeper blue.
Living and dying at the same time,
But mostly dying.
Gentle spirits sadly pass
And gently watch them die.
Watchfully at ease,
Eating each other.
Why do they bother to be so beautiful,
Living in a graveyard?
Is it something to do with the shark,
Who turns
And glides and softly turns again
And glides and turns again?
He seems to feel he owns this graveyard
With its crust of hopeful life.
Could he be the pallid genius willing it to grow,
Creating life and rock from sun and water,
Building himself a blue empire
In which all make way?
Or is he just a sentry on the bastions of the sea,
To warn ‘turn back’ to those who stray
From other worlds?
The trickling sands creep by; the gentle spirits watch.
Why do they bother to be so beautiful?
RAE, 5 September 1976
Blue wall fading in the distance.
Coral stems thrusting to the sunlight, from blueness into gold,
Then failing;
Falling as broken blocks and slowly trickling sand
To deeper blue.
Living and dying at the same time,
But mostly dying.
Gentle spirits sadly pass
And gently watch them die.
Watchfully at ease,
Eating each other.
Why do they bother to be so beautiful,
Living in a graveyard?
Is it something to do with the shark,
Who turns
And glides and softly turns again
And glides and turns again?
He seems to feel he owns this graveyard
With its crust of hopeful life.
Could he be the pallid genius willing it to grow,
Creating life and rock from sun and water,
Building himself a blue empire
In which all make way?
Or is he just a sentry on the bastions of the sea,
To warn ‘turn back’ to those who stray
From other worlds?
The trickling sands creep by; the gentle spirits watch.
Why do they bother to be so beautiful?
RAE, 5 September 1976