To My Mother, In Memoriam 1999
Within an urn her ashes rest/and seas disquieted with storm/with fish-upyielding calm are blessed/and to the cleaving keel conform.
Her father in his oilskins,/his moustache iced, his eye agleam,/from harvesting that churn of fins/regreets her in a vivid dream.
O Newfoundland! O Life Severe!/O Rocky Coast and Raging Sea!/How strange to learn that Thou art mere/mind-wrought and fleeting fantasy!
How strange and yet how lovely this:/when we have shed the weary husk,/to find a long occluded bliss/which dawns where mortals see but dusk.
Thus happy may my mother be,/and uneclipsed her radiant heart,/and if she drift upon the sea/may all unwelcome squalls depart