The poem
When his boat snapped loose from its mooring, under the screaking of the gulls, he tried at first to wave to his dear ones on shore, but in the rolling fog they had already lost their faces. Too tired even to choose between jumping and calling, somehow he felt absolved and free of his burdens, those mottoes stamped on his name-tag: conscience, ambition, and all that caring. He was content to lie down with the family ghosts in the slop of his cradle, buffeted by the storm, endlessly drifting. Peace! Peace! To be rocked by the Infinite! As if it didn't matter which way was home; as if he didn't know he loved the earth so much he wanted to stay forever.
This poem spoke to me directly about the end of life, leaving all things, although one loves the earth--all thingswill leave at the time of death or even extreme old age. Then our standards and our attachments are cast in an extreme shadow, as if paltry things, no longer of the essence. Yet there is not a reprieve from such a conclusion. The poet's kindly expression on a National Public Radio site, which quoted this poem, is different from the uncompromising nature of the meaning as I understand it.
It seemed to me a wonderful contribution.
This is a good poem.