Dave Bonta's short poem treats the sea almost like a person, and an oddly stubborn one. In the first stanza it is called "a great horror," yet it shares the "mind" of anyone else who might be changed. The lines are slippery, so the meaning isn't fixed, but the idea seems to be that even something enormous and frightening can be open to alteration.
The second stanza makes the sea more human still. It "did not know how to retire and live a private life," as if it were an aging performer who can't step out of the spotlight. Then the last stanza turns, almost casually, to what the sea gave us: "the best-spoken people / for a song." That could hint at sailors, storytellers, or the songs themselves, though the poem never says.
The mood is wry and a little eerie. The title suggests a sea shanty broken into fragments, and the speaker seems to regard the sea with a mix of unease, humor, and curious respect.