You paint the

empty corners

where sunlight

spikes the shadows.

Who am I

to understand

your truth?

You nightly

stroll through

dream,

my child:

at least once

you were

now grown

in beauty.

We talk

in whispers,

eons

separate & rent

our structure.

You hide:

an enigma

to me.

Your cells

still circulate

my blood,

& yet

like mountain

peaks we gaze

but never broach

the distance.

Your face is in my head:

I hadn’t thought of you

in years, but now I see

a mirage of your life;

a rainbow on a waterfall

the sunshine & the rain

those demons that I fought

both real & imagined.

So bright, so handsome so alive

but now you face the fire

dust to dust, molecules of light

float through space & time

to visit in my dreams:

I didn’t know

I didn’t know

the life that I let go

would return like this

to haunt me.

Your face is in my head

an image clear & true

dark eyes dark curls

your voice soft measured words,

you were a good person

who touched the core of life

your talent ran so deep

the caverns cannot hold it.

Who am I to write these words?

Who am I to mourn you?

I didn’t know

I didn’t know

the life that I let go

would return this day

to haunt me.

It’s a dragon year

& the moon is edging full

illuminating mist over cobbled roof:

frozen river, slick, ‘n silver,

shadow of the willow pledges

‘Spring’, with her thin yellow hair

crying, as if to save the earth

from all our violent sin.

Hyacinth on my table

purple & fecund, as lilies fade

& I’m waiting for the ducks

to crack their eggs, exude

exuberant fluff to ease

my gloom.

What of you & I?

We’re silent like a missing sea

we’re constant like the rising sun

we’re invisible & like running water we

erode each other into new forms

as yet unnameable