DREAMT

In Memoriam: Richard Morrison

I

Alive! Look alive! Grab the taffrail,

Pull aboard. A hand there!

Heed that rope coiled against the coaming.

So, moorings slipped, sail hoisted,

Prow splits the sea.

The halyard snaps. Sunbright,

Dolphins vault the wake,

And saltspray stings the flesh, like memory.

II

Legs braced against the pitching deck,

Measure out the sun,

Watch the stars dip beyond the mast.

Knowing now is and is not.

There’s no need for compass and glass.

The sky plates down.

The gulls are gone.

O! Let the wind sing in the foresail.

III

Soon. Soon. That treeless shore

¾ Which knows only itself

And is known only in the word ¾

Where the tides hang

Waiting for the moon to turn.

There amid the salt burnt rocks

And the shipwrecked bones

All that’s dreamt, sleeps.