Sea Poem

Charles Tomlinson

A whiter bone:
 the sea-voice
   in a multiple monody
crowding towards that end.
 It is as if
   the transparencies of sound
composing such whiteness
 disposed many layers
   with a sole movement
of the various surface,
 the depths, bottle-glass green
   the bed, swaying
like a fault in the atmosphere, each
 shift
   with its separate whisper, each whisper
a breath of that singleness
 that 'moves together
   if it moves at all',
and its movement is ceaseless,
 and to one end-
   the grinding
a whiter bone.