Hearing of your death
in violence
your body found by a fisherman
drifting
as in your floating
Protean poem,
I realize you must have dreamed
just this death

and in my own dreams lately
you have walked white-faced,
blood on your forehead,
wearing a seaweed-black
trailing skirt

but speaking
in a voice
gentle as water
your tidal poems.

And I remember
that this summer I envied you
your poems,
their gull-and-falcon swooping,
and even the pain behind them
that poured blood into them.

Forgive me, gentle ghost.
Haunt my mind’s
passageways
with your grace.
Haunt me with your words.
Let your spilled blood
renew my veins.

Rise, and walk
on all the waters
of your tears,
like sunshine stepping
on the waves
of the life-and-death-creating
end-of-all-journeys sea.