LETTERS TO THE DEAD: TWENTY – NINE

6/29/2018
For Mark Morgan (1950 – 2017)

I)( from  Jonathon Greene’s 
                      “Seeking Light”)
     ………………..
     so few drops

     to evoke 
     a sea

II) on Celia Street
      
     bottlebrush
     butterfly bush
     coneflower
     giant hyssop
     milkweed
     zinnia:
     Monarch Fuel for
         the Great Flight
             to the Sacred Firs
                 of Sierra Chincua
     today, the first reports of
         their arrival in your yard,
             this fall you’ll fly
                 with them 

III) on Dividing Ridge Road

     today i miss our friendship
     but suddenly you arrive:
1) I plan a trip and my Ohio atlas
     falls open to Port Orchard Point
     where you’d creased the page
     to show a birding spot
2) in a stack of papers to file 
     there’s a photo of you,
     binoculars to your eyes,
     peering out at me
3) behind the calendar 
     on the kitchen wall
     your pencil drawing
     of a locust tree appears
4) in my newly purchased
     book, “Seeking Light”
     I discover I’m not the first
     to dedicate a poem to you:

Boomerang*
for Mark Morgan

You squared up
a cresent moon for me.

Toss it towards the heavens
with the right slant

it comes back 
as if I had called.

(* – page 52 of Jonathon Greene’s
  “Seeking Light”)