for a time we lived in the same place
yet inhabited different homes
I saw walls hung rich with art
ate meals from hand-thrown plates
slept on a bed built with love
you didn’t notice paintings at all
thought pottery worthless bits of clay
had no care for handmade things
saddened I see this still in you
though you place no value in what I think
you have turned the world into your mirror
all you see is your glittering self
even my love could not pull your gaze
travel back now to the home you left
the home from which you were banished
to the doors which you closed behind you
the doors that refused you admittance
paint the walls with your tears
let them run with streaks of icy blue
then throw your laughter bright upon them
and walk away forever this time
the doors thrown open in invitation to all
the house finally empty of all sorrow
leaving only your many discarded faces
a tree grew on the banks of the bayous
shadowed for long periods but with filtered sun
enough to thrive and reach out over the waters
it sheltered nutria beneath its shade
sometimes a human would rest there
in verdant silence undisturbed and find
a moment of stillness would settle their mind
the tree’s gift, drawn up from deep roots
offered to any who drew near
but the tree became tall and the bayou traveled
so one day men came with saws
the noise they made filled the air
each cut into the bark shriller than the last
at the end as they left, they looked back at the clearing
stopped in their tracks by a sudden peace
driven to the refuge of shadows
so not to become her mother’s sacrificial prey
another child offered to uncaring gods
by a parent bent on insane pursuit of their own goals
she watched as her mother danced about with gibbering glee
and even as she shouted in her madness
words that jangled with sharp strident barbs
and waved her anger hotter than any blazing branch
Electra loved her, even as she wept in fear
your heart, so full of love, so full of grief
cannot prepare for absence
will not allow to you to sit at the table
alone and say, she will not sit here again
it insists that this cannot be so, this void
looks away determined that she waits
one footstep away from entering the room
and if only you look at just the right moment
she’ll walk in to pull out her chair
the fullness of this daily act so simple, so dear
that without it, the silence swallows all
still you hear your overflowing heart, your stubborn heart
crack and crack and crack
though I know ghost roads of this town
stories of hidden bones
burnt ruins of forgotten churches
bloodied shame of certain corner lots
I am once again a stranger here
warily walk unfamiliar ways
finding small welcome or recognition
not significant enough to be granted
even a visitors pass
she is gone. that is all.
the how, the why, the when are nothing.
they cannot change these things:
the bed no longer warmed by her long limbs.
the blanket dampened by my tears.
the pillow lonely without her head.
that she walked into death with willing hands,
the river her only road of escape,
this does not matter.
her absence is the bedrock of grief,
the hard ground where I have lain,
and from here I have to stand.
the wind knew what I would not
whispered it through the trees
and they remembered it also
made it shine like gold on every leaf
weighing so heavy with unspoken love
felling each one by one
a foliaged pool spilled across the coal dust
the dry rustle as I walked
the brilliant glint that caught the sun
these poured recall to my cracked broken heart
I knelt in the trail and cried
in this here at this now so much noise
air itself vibrates and hums
counterpoint to the rising drone of heat
the occasional wind a parched threnody
in chorus with barren hillsides
trail once buttressed with foliaged arches
no longer a quiet refuge
brittle leaves in the coal dust underfoot
each step rustles these premature bones
a creek a well a desperate hope for rain
the distant memory of silence
once I dug holes in red sticky clay and filled them with fascinations
small gnarled twigs old rusted bolts fragments of shell
stories I heard from each of these I also threw in
with my commonplace dreams everyday hopes ordinary loves
I once tried to show them to her in shy offering to gain a brief smile
my dirtied hands were pushed away then I dropped my gaze and left
quelled by the holes that became her eyes