What Remains

.


          I

I’ve dreamt again, of beetles, of mouths
filled with dark earth and I wake, startled,
to the sound of rain falling on stone.
A thought whispers itself in my ear,

'Even stone wears away
under the delicate force of tears'...

On the window, I see your fingerprints,
smudges on cold glass.
Many times, my hand has risen
to wipe them away, yet always stops
        midair,
as if stilled by the fear
that this simple act could erase you
from my heart.

You taught me love,
yet without you, life
becomes a useless skill.


          II

I swear I can taste you on my tongue,
(so like rain, earthy and green)
and I feel you linger, breathing
the soft sighs of the dead in my ear.
Hidden in echoes, comforting footsteps

  trail me from here

                        to there;

this empty room is filled with you,
even as I am filled with sorrows.
I’ve tried, again and again, to write
of you-- deep, aching words that weep
from my pen, love letters to gentle shadows...

  "Beloved,
      I am pale rain and grieving air--
    fragile petals that fall
      across the lips of a mournful ghost,
    and only love remains"...

I've burrowed into the futility of it;
they are merely ink
on ordinary paper, voiceless
and bleak.


          III
 
Something loves and torments us...
refusing to let go.
How many times has the moon
waxed and waned-- how many times
has the wisteria flowered
since I’ve shut us both away?

Love lives wherever.

                        You and I
are meant for different places, now.


Letters shift and flutter to the floor
on your soundless breeze;
my hand raises to the window pane,
a slow, tender arc of motion,
    like waving you from sight.                   




              We must let the dead move on.












       
.
MKL