A Sailor's Last Wish

Is it permitted?
I doubt it.
Will it be done?
I’ll be there
but won’t know,
how I hope so.

One hundred and ninety nine well worn steps
maybe three hundred paces to mount them.
Bear me high on strong shouldered bier,
past cottages coated with calling cards
from generations of seagulls and guillemots.
The wind whips the blooms, and hats you wear,
to a frenzy of flapping that doesn’t faze me
while it snatches and frees them to sail in my van.
At the summit find peace and a rest from your toil
then press onward with joy, not to grieve by my grave
for the stones that will mark it are centuries old
and lie crumbled and ground like this house that was me.

Cast me off
let me sail
on the wind
and the tide
in the lee
of Whitby Abbey.