The Bell Below the Tide

At low tide, the bell beneath the pier speaks once, though no hand is near. The mud receives its darkening sound; crabs make small doors in the ground. I have brought my questions here, where salt makes every answer clear: not by naming what will stay, but by loosening the day. When the tide returns, the bell grows still. The water climbs the weathered sill. Yet under the deepening blue, something in me keeps ringing too.