I trimmed the wick at dawn today
The glass was salted clean and gray
Out past the shoals the big guns speak
Their voices carry low and weak
The beam sweeps wide across the plain
Where iron rests in clay and rain
No bugle calls no flags unfurled
Just thunder rolling round the world
The logbook lists the wind and tide
But nothing writes what stays inside
A steel pot lying in the sludge
No name scratched in no final judge
I watched the storms tear masts apart
And felt the lightning strike the chart
But this quiet death on broken ground
Makes not a sound makes not a sound
The beam sweeps wide across the plain
Where iron rests in clay and rain
No bugle calls no flags unfurled
Just thunder rolling round the world
The Fresnel lens turns slow and sweet
It catches metal at its feet
One flash for every boy unknown
The sea keeps secrets keeps its own
The fuel runs low the night grows cold
The beam still turns the story told
That helmet sits where grass won't grow
The only thing the light will show
The beam sweeps wide across the plain
Where iron rests in clay and rain
No bugle calls no flags unfurled
Just thunder rolling round the world
The beam sweeps on across the plain
The beam sweeps on through wind and rain
