print previewback HENRY HART
Ink-Stone Box
We carried your ashes to the pond
on White Stork Mountain, let wind
scatter them on blueberry roots and granite.
In hospice, your last breaths rasped
like waves from the pond’s dark throat;
your body lurched like driftwood.
Today I open your gift—the inkstone box—
dampen a stick of glued soot in water,
smudge it on stone. Black tears drip
into the carved dragon’s mouth.
I dip my pen and scratch
until we climb together to White Stork Tower,
live once more
for a week on nothing
but Campbell’s soup and oatmeal, listen to snow
tick on panes and cry: I’m a wedding veil
pulled over the moon’s stigmata,
a loon fluttering in the dark beyond stars. 
Annunciation, 1960
Ink-Stone Box
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Trakl at Sandy Hook