The Cry of Coral

Have you ever heard the cry of coral?
It is the tiniest of sounds
Hardly audible amid the ocean’s boil
And waves hissing on the sand
Shifting stones into a shining pile.

A blink of light from mother-of-pearl
Or from an opal on your lover’s hand
Is louder than the staghorn’s wail
Drowns out the weeping of the sea-fan
As one whisper in an Atlantic gale.

On the palm-fringed shore of some isle
Castaways walk their endless rounds
Wondering why the reefs look so pale.
Sailors may yet become unstranded
Coral cannot escape when oceans boil.

Have you ever heard the cry of coral?
Extinction’s whisper at the edge of land?
Have you seen what the beachmongers have for sale?
Washed-up fragments, dead-white, sterile
Fit jewels for a skeleton crown.

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