For Mary Oliver

(September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019)

When a poet dies

words drift,

milkweed floss

on an updraft,

white bleeding to sky,

watermarks waning

to nothing, beyond.

The hole grows.

Image to hand to page,

liquid through fingers,

raindrops off a leaf, 

ache to ember, coal to ash.

Sifting through cinders,

you feel for warmth,

but the unsaid,

ghosts ephemeral.

All that remains

is air.

Liza Carens Salerno

01/19/19