A Year Flown Out

Do you not sense the autumn wind that falls

across your grave in sighs, bereft of breath,

to mourn a second time your death? Will

winter's freeze break up my frozen heart

to smithereens with its sharp biting chill?

Or still, when winter finally is strangling earth,

frost-bitten in a rage that knows no ease,

then should I hold my breath to be like you?

Would I then gasp and choke, my lungs

imbued with April rains, my grief iced up,

and only thawed by tears that stain my face

accrued upon your grave in liquid pain?

I plant forget-me-nots and lilies-of the valley,

and think of spring's reviving strength, it's here,

yet I can see no blooms at all, your face

in bloom, as earlier, haunts everywhere.

Summer has come and gone, the sun too faint

to penetrate the sorrow, light the haze

in which I live as if there's no tomorrow,

one day indifferent from the next, a cloud that stays.

Autumn is back. A year flown out. The crimson leaves

bedeck your bed as trails of blood on ashen soil,

the turmoil of last year, no less, as when

I first stood here, embroiled, to say good bye.

The Web Projects of Sondra Ball and Mario Cavallini