called, "when I am dead"
and what came to mind, while
pecking away
were thatched roof cottages, hedgerows
all along a cliff,
and waves below whipping against
earth's spine
farther out were great swells
and black ships foundering
sea serpents were darting through
the green depths
this spectacle was silent, the screaming
men, the crashing waves
even the charcoal sky, threaded with a
thousand bolts of lightning
birthed no thunder, though I didn't
wonder why
I was supposed to among the dead
where vibrations abound
though none pound against
eardrums
such silence, I was told, was tantamount
to solace
but men were drowning, and fires leapt
across the waters
and no passage led up the cliffs to home
and sanctuary from this terrific tempest
He's in his cottage on a bluff above the Atlantic, on his deathbed. His hearing is long gone, but he can yet see. His final vision is that of a schooner, aflame with its ****** leaping into a turbulent ocean, some already on fire.