Down Beside the San Francisco Bay
He went to San Francisco,
walked the shore,
felt the sea wet rocks
slip beneath his oxfords,
crouched down, hunched his back,
curved by all his wayward burdens,
and gathered seaweed,
ribbons of seaweed,
topped with tousled green bells,
star fish, tangled ribbons of blacks and greens,
retrieved these from the ankle deep water.
He put the seaweed in a box,
and mailed it to me.
My father thought of me
as he walked the San Francisco shore.
I think of him, thinking of me,
as I remember something I have never seen,
for now he is buried in Australia.
Someday his wife will leave Australia,
and with her, their daughters.
He will be alone.
Perhaps, then, I will fly
New York to San Francisco,
stop along the shore,
gather seaweed, travel days to his foreign grave
and mix seaweed
with the packed dry dirt of Australia.
Because human beings remember, and love,
and never are completely exiled from their own.
The thinnest ribbons connect our souls.