I want to return
To that storm-hewn cliff,
And, this time use it's sanctuary,
Make use of the gale,
Wrap myself in the gull cries,
Feel the sharpwarm grass at my feet.
I want to return to where the tides
Feel a greater sense of rage,
At having their erroding edge blunted
On the flint coastal fringe,
To return to weep the tears
Left for my father.
Having lived a life lost,
He survived in these hard wild places,
Hiding, weeping for himself
In that elemental treehouse
Beloved of small boys
Cast in the role of men.
I want to weep where he lived his sadness,
In concert with the textured browngreen,
To seek communion with him
Where we once built our dykes.
All of that wasted time will stand for me
Solid as the permanence of that place,
And I will stand before it
In a sense of last rites.

Robert Wylie

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-sense-of-last-rites/