my father kept a vaulted conch by two bronze bookends of ships in sail and i listened its cold teeth seethed with voices of that ambiguous sea old bcklin missed who held a shell to hear the sea he could not hear what the seashell spoke to his inner ear he knew but no peasants know my father died and when he died he willed his books and shell away the books burned up sea took the shell but i i kept the voices he set in my ear and in my eye the sight of those blue unseen waves for which the ghost bcklin grieves the peasants feast and multiply and never need what i see in the temple of broken stones above a worn curtain rears the white head of a god or madman nobody knows which or dares to ask from him i have tomorrow s gossip and doldrums so much is vision good for like a persistant stitch in the side it nags is tedious 