After Robert Dash’s Photograph Into The Mystic
They say
When those that love the sea die
They rush out across the blue toward the horizon
And are undressed along their way by the
Sea’s smoky breath
So only a wisp of memory
Hope and love reaches god
They say
The pearly soul dances a final time
Seeing on the sea’s face
The mirror of its past lives
It is a swift dance a curlicue
A laugh only fishes hear and
Only the distance believes
And understands.
After Rooms By The Sea, 1951, by Edward Hopper
He has left me these rooms
And memories like blades by the sea
That sweep aside all flesh and memory of it
An exorcism in his absence that takes away all
But the sunlight and lapping bay that repeats,
I told you so
I told you so.
I know the deep blueness inside the sea that carries
Everything away would take me too if I let it
There at my fingertips it sings always
Instead I choose these rooms
Changing diagrams of light as the
Clean slate upon which to
Rebuild my life reclaim my days
Take down the trenchant night.