Requiescat In Pace - Valentine Poem by Bill Grace

Cruising around the World Wide Web
Checking on who was stealing poetry
On the Russian site I noticed on the side column
'The Sea'
A strange event to break a grief open and prompt a poem.

I regret I did not go to Bob Nally and commission a portrait of the sea
When I had the money from being quite prepared to help blow up the world.
There is some art that makes you ache with its reality.
Bobby was a Gloucester boy he knew the sea
His Father took my Dad to the gallery where an enormous canvas hung that he had done
Though I was very young still I swear that despite the air conditioned comfort
I could taste the ocean from the oils on that canvas
Feel its setting sun upon my skin.
It is a sin I did not act.

The Monet is of 'La Pie' a giant poster from the Louvre gift shop
It rests on the mantle over our humble fire place in land locked Texas
It is nice but it does not breathe of salt air, or a screaming seagull ghost,
And a world whose terrors my father escaped and I never knew - the sea
Probably a nice place to visit
Yet this wound is still to heal along with such other cowardice
As not humbly asking a girl named Sandy to marry me
All this - back when dinosaurs walked upon the earth.