Bodies of Water
An Aquatic Eulogy for Dad
Bodies of water; tears of love
Spring from the earth and flow from above
Lakes and rivers, tea-stained or clear
Fast or still; churn through the year
Nutrients spiraling down to the sea
Marl and sediment, alder tree.
Estuarine bays, by tides re-fed
Neaptide and moonlight through eelgrass bed
Bodies of water, teeming with life
Cladocera, Daphne; alewife
Benthos and plankton, drifting by
Riffles and laughter; rise to the fly
Onchorynchus tshawytscha
Teaching fishing grandsons Ba
Bodies of water and souls of light
Breath and heartbeat; day and night
Swim in the ocean, bright with dawn
Shorebirds and love and Grace flow on
Everything cycles; everything flows
Everyone dies, everyone knows
Ashes to ashes, minerals to rust;
Salt of the earth, dust to dust.
Waterfalls tumbling down to the sea
Now your love flows on through me.