Galway Kinnell, an American poet, passed from leukemia at the age of 87 on October 28, 2014. A while back, my dad gave me a collection of his poetry, Three Books, which has been very inspirational to me in my writing. His poetry is simply written and slowly paced yet so engrossing. I read his poems and picture a grandfather rocking in his chair reciting line after line to the sweeping wind.

The following is one of my favorite poems by Kinnell. He is survived by his wife and two children.

Fisherman

for Allen Planz

Solitary man, standing
on the Atlantic, high up on the floodtide
under the moon, hauling at nets
that shudder sideways under the mutilated darkness:
the one you hugged and slept with so often,
who hugged you and slept with you so often,
who has gone away now
into the imaginary moonlight of the greater world,
perhaps looks back at where you stand abandoned
on the floodtide, hauling at nets
and dragging from the darkness
anything, and reaches back
as if to touch you
and speak to you
from that other relation to which she suddenly acquiesced
dumbfounded,
but finds she can only sing to you
in the sea-birds and breeze you truly hear but imagine you're
remembering.

I don't know how you loved
or what marriage was and wasn't between you -
not even close friends understand very much of that -
but I know ordinary life was hard
and worry joined your brains' faces in pure, baffled lines,
and therefore some part of you will have gone
with her, imprinted now
into that world that she alone doesn't fear
and that now you have to that degree also ceased fearing,
and waits there to recognize you into it
after you've lived, lived past the sorrows,
if that happens, after all the time in the world.