(for Kathy 1940–2019)

Photo by Marcus Cramer on Unsplash

 

She was close to death — 

her loved ones bereft.

I read between the lines,

just a habit of mind,

then looked again,

out of the side of my eye:

more and more, as time passes by

what we perceive

we half-create.

Buried in the earth,

she's still looking at the sky,

a rumble of thunder,

passing by,

evokes in me such long-lost distant time,

which reverberates still,

in this cloying rhyme.

I stare at her — 

a young woman, here

I gaze at her though thin, gossamer air,

mesmerized: but she’s not there.

Now, in this yew-strewn churchyard site,

by the side of her grave, I whisper ‘goodnight’

I pray for her immortal soul.

It is we, it is we, who are left to grow old,