WAITING FOR SHELLEY

WAITING FOR SHELLEY

My dear brother in poetry,

I waited for your prompt return

from the Gulf of Spezia where

you sailed the Italian waters

with two friends who likewise loved

to sail the Ligurian Sea.

Only the month before, we cheered

your thirtieth birthday. Mary

prepared your favorite supper.

We toasted goblets filled with wine.

We cheered your poem “When Soft Voices

Die.” Now July gallops away

with you in tow. Percy, silent

the lyrical lines you will not write,

unheard laughter at Casa Magni!

    How deep the sorrow, how great the loss!

    I spend my hours now reading

   your poetry, your timeless sonnet

   of the colossus: “…boundless and bare 

   the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

   #