Modern Age * Summer 2017 Seaward Dana Gioia Kneel on the stones, the sea commands. Then cup your hands in the shallow tide. Quench your thirst with stinging brine. No taste more bitter nor truer than mine. Savor the blessings of my refusal. No argosy will satiate the hungers of your restlessness. No harbor house your homelessness. The empty lighthouse flanks the sound, mute memorial to the drowned. Stand on the dock as the ocean swells. Death is what happens to somebody else. Dana Gioia is the author of five books of poetry, including 99 Poems: New and Selected (2016). He is the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. 26 modernagejournal.comhttp://www.modernagejournal.com