On My Death

By Peter Halstead

May that distant sky receding
Forever in the foaming sea;
May the line of the horizon, bleeding
Seasons from infinity;

May the flooding ocean sandbars
Catch the tides and stop the winds
That wash our hours out of stars;
May my childhood summers break and rinse

Over all the torches in the night,
Over all the dark that worlds pit
Against the breezes of the light—
May the waves the future tries to fit

On its dying continental shelf
Drown, and mix, and swell the beaches with
myself.

Lanikai
November 19th and 28th, 2010

Kailua
December 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 2010