1

A Second Sailing

This is where words go
when breath is all that’s left,
a river we enter in
when life begins.

Sing for me,
my darling girl,
when my final song
is a second sailing.

2

Seascape

The moment she touched
the old man’s hand,
he lost his sight
and blindly stood,
yet standing there
upon the sand
he heard the light
play on the waves.
She sang
and let him go,
and like the wind
he sighed.
None knows
what song she sang
or how a man
became the sea.

3

An Island in the River

This was the last time
he would stand on the bridge
over the river.
They were taking him away
because he had fallen
and could not get up
on his own.
He would go, never again
to be the man he was.
Better, he thought,
to fall in the river
that roared with the flood
that came in the spring.
They found him later
shored up on an island
that had long stood
against the river’s time.

4

The Westerlies

The man’s so old
his face is gone.
All that’s left
is his soul.

The sea rolls
in its waves
what the birds
leave behind.

The soul sails
east on borrowed
breath, becomes
the wind.

Then the dawn.

5

Storm Birds

The storm lasts
through the night.

I do not sleep
but dream of birds

that climb the sky
to find the sea.

I close my eyes
and hear the thunder

of a distant shore.

6

As You Were

Set out beneath the stars
on a solitary raft
that drifts along the shore
on a current
that brings you out
to sea and sky.

7

Mnemosyne

Memory, speak for me:
the kiss, the girl
I lost; the road
that became a song;
ever the moon
loves a stranger;
the poems that say
more than I know
are my afterlife.

8

Windswept Days

Westron wynde, when wyll thow blow,
The smalle rayne downe can rayne.
Cryst, yf my love were in my armys,
And I yn my bed agayne.*

See the child at play
in wind and rain
and then the man,
sewing together
his windswept days
before the dying.

O westron wynde,
when wyll thow blow
and take me riding
once again.

* “Westron Wynde” is among the earliest and most
beautiful songs in English. The poet and original music
are unknown, and perhaps better so.

9

The Barren Sea

The Sirens weave your love
of self into song. Thunder,
birdcall, wind and wave
draw you close. No thought
of home holds you back,
the song now a bird of prey.
Too late you see the rocks,
the shore white with bones.


10

Lacrimosa

The music echoed
east and west.

How far above,
how far below

it was heard,
no one knows

except the choir
of the dead.