(for Clifford Ernest Polland
May 21, 1952–March 18-19, 2001)

I stand atop a rock at Shell Beach,
looking out to a sea far calmer
than yesterday’s stormy one
but still alive with vigorous
waves exploding onto seastacks,
sending spray forty feet above
the surge.

No longer do I think on these days,
the anniversary of your departure,
the day you were found:
You should see this, you gone
two dozen years now.

Instead, I think:
You are this—every wave,
every drop of saltwater, every
flower springing into this season
of flowering when you left.
You never left, merely
transformed into, well,
everything.

Years ago the physics of it
struck me: If no new energy
is created in the universe, then
nothing comes to be or perishes,
our atoms simply rearranged
into, well, everything.

You still with me—in sunlight
warming my face—as I stand
at the edge of the earth,
in cooling seaspray
dotting my cheeks,

a kind of holy water
that I never want
to wipe away.