Elegy on a blackboard

i.m. Mark Strand (1934–2014)

Death smears a blackboard with its sleeve.

        Where’s the horse a visiting poet drew

                 forty years ago?

The animal was Magritte’s, but he was dead.

          Horse half shadow, half woods––

                  why chalk it

across the board in poetry class?

          The hall of memory stifles,

                  it stifles a yawn.

Did a window there overlook Seattle?

          That city put a visitor to sleep.

                   He looked the rain god

in the rheumy eye. O his Brazilian shoes!

          Frail barques, they wouldn’t sail a block

                  before they leaked.

If his voice dies on land, take it down to the sea

          and leave it on the shore.