Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead

The speaker is writing this poem to cope with the fact that his father is going to die. The father feels like he is ready to die and assures his son that they will meet again in heaven. The speaker thinks otherwise. He thinks that once his father dies, that will be the last time he sees him. He is "convinced his [father's] ship's gone down." This poem serves as a way to express the speaker's emotions of loss. He doesn't want his father to die but knows that death is inevitable.