11/22/08

I see now that
you will never leave me
or the things that I love.
The snow which
used to fall so quietly
speaks your name where
it gathers, white
on the patient green.
From inside watching
daylight fade as the snow
piles more substantial,
chairs, books, my very clothes
begin to speak of you
begging your presence
lamently softly as a child does,
where is my heart?

Everything choruses
demanding you appear
with all your joy, light
in your hands, fingers
like stars, star-man
mother, builder, sun
sun-man enclosing and
naming all the lost and
little things.

We sing for you.
Unwilling and now
willing in our desperation
we sing and call for you
to come back from
whatever great distance
you maintain.
We are like supplients
in a temple whose
god has fled.
Myself and these things
in a room growing
ever wider.

The whole world asks
for you, the smallest flower
cries bitterly at your loss.
Would you deny this thing
its tiny happiness?

In each flake of snow
you reflect, multiplied
weighing heavy on boughs
straining under your bounty.
Yet hopeful is the green
unseen beneath its burden.