Where does the soft cloud go when it dissipates into mist?

And where does the mist go after it falls on the leaf?

A photosynthesizing factory played out, the dried leaf falls, 

But where?

Decayed now to soil, what great trees will it nourish before it washes to the sea?

Trees honed into ribs and planks, shaped into the hull of

The sloop that is sailing 

– to where?

Coves and ports until swallowed by winds and storms

That came from the hurricane, 

But where does the tempest go?

Is it, perhaps, reincarnated as a soft cloud?

Posthumous praise means nothing to the sailor

Now these many years dead in the sand

Soft white clouds drifting over his bones.

LRT June 2022