ASHES (for FWJ 1932-2008)

I am here, a journal on my knee
writing this while morning sunlight
shimmers off the pond outside my window.
You are miles away in the flotsam and jetsam
that makes up the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps,
I think to myself, as I gaze at the nautilus shell
on the mahogany shelf. After you floated along,
the crests and troughs at Lewes Beach, you sank
sunlight glinting off the ash until it was too dark,
too dark to see you as your million tiny specks
came to final rest on the ocean floor.
I sit here with this pen between my fingers, scribbling
across the page, hoping for a grand communion
with the water of the universe, or something bigger still,
and as I sit , the thoughts of you, ashes scattered across the
dark and cold sea, are as close to me as the ink ,
the very ink on this page