If I Had Died

When I died in my twenty-second year 

I was interred deeply into black soil 

Near Sacramento, the same dark earth 

In which I had toiled for my father. 

My casket was surrounded by relatives 

Consoling my mother and many friends, 

All younger than me, shocked now 

Into believing in death. I was unmourned 

By descendants. I am now a vague memory. 

Poetry having been only a brief flirtation. 

When I died in my forty-sixth year 

I was borne away from my daughters 

When they were too young to understand. 

They thus never came to believe in God 

Even after moving back to Hawai`i 

With their mother and His consolation 

All around them in the palms and water. 

My first poems have survived me. 

Perhaps in them, my children would learn 

About me by the time they understood Death. 

When I died in my sixty fourth year 

Not quite old enough to not have died 

Too young, my ashes were scattered 

Upon our Pacific to let me drift 

Upon beaches at Point Reyes, Shillshoe 

And Lanikai where my younger feet 

Had left no marks for anyone to follow. 

My daughters tell my grandchildren 

To seek me in the water near shores 

Where poets solemnly amble. 

When I died in my eighty ninth year 

It was too late for all my friends 

Who had gone before me and too early 

For my grandchildren who barely knew 

That I was a poet, my withered body 

Whisked on smoke to the heavens and my wife 

Who was waiting for me beyond time. 

And my headstone nothing more than piles 

Of poems scattered across a few bookshelves 

Where someone will read them and nod.