For the Dead

I dreamed I called you on the telephone / to say: Be kinder to yourself / but you were sick and would not answer // The waste of my love goes on this way / trying to save you from yourself // I have always wondered about the left-over / energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill / long after the rains have stopped // or the fire you want to go to bed from / but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down / the red coals more extreme, more curious / in their flashing and dying / than you wish they were / sitting long after midnight