Coming and going
through veils of darkness
now begin
the steps of grief.
The world of sensible seasons
has come undone.
Nothing has changed
but, every conscious minute,
bizarre alterations
of previous patterns
are sealed inside
her airtight house.
Helplessness and sorrow
are jammed inside.
She is bewildered
by the familiar
formula for living
while feeling the magnitude
of death too deeply.
Not all have the stomach
to watch such extinction.
Dumb, helpless fascination
curls around her fright
at the barren rectangle
of his absence.
Two willows are struck
by lightning, fused
with longing
larger than life.
Two humans in love
with the idea of persisting
in the concentrated air
of their aloneness,
never see straight through
to a time of solitude.
With nostalgia for a bond
fast slipping into the past,
she retreats to familiar ground
of loss and insufficiency,
weeping and watching
the bottomless void of wonder.
