Oh, my friends,

I have been reading your poems
and can see

how little water I have to add
to this sea. I pick up one of

your books, read a page,
put it down. There is no

story I can tell, no insight
I have to offer that is not

trumped by two hundred 
of your own. This is not

complaint but acknowledgment
of how much of my time

has been wasted in
contemplation of my own

need to communicate
private messages that in fact

are no more than common
firecrackers — loud, each mildly effective

on its own, terrible when taken
in their entirety;

all you do is so much more
than what I do and now all I have

is this one story of how I personally
must Pass from consideration

now that I have made this 
connection. Oh, my friends,

you have done
all I thought I might do

when I started — yet
I am not envious.  It has

been done and for that reason
I am satisfied to write 

that last tale of how
I am preparing to pass on —

the only one only I can tell,
the only one that rocks only me

upon its slight waves.