AFTER SOME LINES FROM OUYAN XIU'S "PARTING GRIEF"

In your grief, don't
lean too far out

over the railing
to look for me.

You will see
only the mountain

at the far end
of the grasslands.

I am already
beyond all that.

Tom Montag's books of poetry include: Making Hay & Other Poems; Middle Ground; The Big Book of Ben Zen; In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013; This Wrecked World; The Miles No One Wants; Imagination's Place; Love Poems; and Seventy at Seventy. His poem 'Lecturing My Daughter in Her First Fall Rain' has been permanently incorporated into the design of the Milwaukee Convention Center. He blogs at The Middlewesterner. With David Graham he recently co-edited Local News: Poetry About Small Towns.