Blue Hen

Fires of the lighthouse burning in the bay

Waters of the sound sleeping through the day

Ostrich of the night half buried in the sand

Nearer comes the man, sickle in hand

Battles in the back seat, soap box car

Black-bolt lightning car--I don't care who you are

Fires of the lighthouse, sound of the guitar

Far beyond a cure far beneath regard

("Things without all the remedy should be without regard"--Lady Macbeth)

Death where is thy sting?

In the trails of Sunfish sails and curve stitch string?

Black mass ghosts of half-chewed hosts

Off the Henlopen coast

In the saltwater spring

Death: You arrive washed up in the tide

Normally alive with your consolation boots of Spanish inquisition eyes

Prancing around the stage at your advancing age

Offering stale communion to the presbyters of time?

Cousins on the swing set, rabbits in the grass:

Is it too much to ask to reproduce the past?

Stories of the Ice Boat No.3 wreck kept us warm

Sheltered from storm on the ocean floor

And in the morning, we rest in Corinthian headdress

On couches of ivory

And wake in the moonlight

Like badgers at midnight

To friends made in factories somewhere

You'll know where to find us, our best years behind us

Barefooted pilgrims at shrines of our youth:

'Our joy was electric, our circles concentric...'

Converging on statues of permanence

Death where is thy sting?

You ought to put more thought into what you bravely sing

Aft-mast ships of straw-short bricks...

You'll soon see exactly where my victory is

The spring to its slumber

Your lighthouses black

Like virginal slumber

I'll break like the lap

Of your Delaware shore

Your Blue Hen remains

Will dissolve at my door

Like a teaspoon of salt in the rain

And I'll wrap up your absence

In blankets of reverence

A mastodon shadow

Divided by zero

And comfort your family

With words like eternity

And friends made in factories somewhere