The Brooklyn Rail

River Elegy 

                      for Cole

The sky a vast U-turn above thick trees hooked onto cloud.

Everything partial but entire, fullness indicating absence.

Absence in the billowing waters, in the body’s scant attire.

Someone addresses God directly, asking and again asking.

This pelting is unabbreviated; we understand about pleas.

We get it: wind coiling up the coast, relentless, unforgiving.

A great tide. A great tide of green holding the white turn of sky

As if a bundle to be transported to the next infinite breath.

Various sounds, patter, pelt, drumming; the adroit birds silent.

Silence as a form of sorrow. Silence as a dwelling like a hoop

Of white sky held in place by a cascading harbor’s green.

These moving violently, then resting, then again, upward.

It seemed useless to count. Days, leaves, waves. Futile.

And then the told rests. Then nothing further is addressed.