All my unlit candles light when I read his words

Turbulent and kind, blunt and lying

I wonder if I could steal the buttons from his coat

And return them as a raven

For another word

Moonfall

The chill air coils me like a snake around you

Gentle and probing and harmless after all

Night speaks spreads sparks spirals

At the sound of you

Buried without vigil

Firm in your pine box

For fractions of a Dawn grown dim

We mourn smaller and smaller pieces of you

Your life!

Your heart!

Your smile!

Your wife pales in the firelight

No one to catch her

As she continues to fall

Fall

Fall in love

Ah, Peace! that desolation proved

The better path to trod.

Not now a friend to any man

As war spreads abroad.

We are! we cry to opened skies

And answer to our prayers

The death of man!

The swallowing grave full and full again

full and full again

The bold sunlight scars my face

Furrows for future tears to run

Yet turn to its surface I’m wont to do

For darkness cares not for wrinkled time

Caresses the fallen fruit of youth

Night out to celebrate Tom

Who killed himself on July 4

To little worldly fanfare

But aflutter still in the hearts

Of all those who loved him

Writing without a title proves tedious

Definition without a word

Feeling around for the truth

A tongue probing the wound where once was a tooth

And here we stand

Pulled tight in our reason our understanding our knowing

Invested in two little palms we will never press to our lips

She says

I roll my eyes when the mourning comes

How thick they lay it on

How heavy and sparkling they make it seem

But we know

As we stand

That is how it comes

Stars wink in the soup

I, too, rest my eyes

A chaotic emptying

Of years

In each blink