Francis.


      Soon this empty space,
        this blank parchment,
      will be filled with words
    that came from the ether,

       just as tided gifts from
     the Atlantic, whose shells
          alerted St.Brendan
          to a new existence.

      From Inis Torc, a braille
       island, blinded by mist,
       lost to an inhospitable
    history; a hopeful horizon.

       West of west, to follow
     the golden furnace which
    sank each day and boiled
the sea to a tempestuous fury,

     but simmered to a calm by
       the mariners star in the
      still of night. Salt of those
   last waves are in your earth.