To my dead son or daughter
I left you
Let you pass
Kept you out

Frozen
The mark of
the palmist foretelling five children
I climb this hill now with four at my side

Your memory: A shadow on the distant range
where eucalyptus is to its last
the blue mountain

Though I climb and four grow
the wife that was then is now gone
her grief and her echo

Still I sense the soft pad of your call
the tug of your passing
and then almost
the first breath of greeting


MChallis © 2015