For Mimi

He died as though
he’d read his own book
and believed that folks should dies that way.

                             They shouldn’t you know.
Especially, the poetic few
who say so much for all of us
with knotted tongues.

These men should die in poppy fields
old and withered, used up, done,
their last days spent as children once again.

Twenty-nine is young enough to dig a well
and sow at least a dozen kids
and leave another song or so for us to sing
and hike a half dozen hills.
Poets after all should walk
and be content to take their time.

But when you straddle a machine
to race along the sea
you should be prepared to die
when the machine dies under you.

I hope he was.

Sausalito
5/11/66