This has happened before

He knows the ribbon of it,

the fluttering murmur of

her final breath that mouths

on earth is no abiding stay

all men must pass away.

and the refraction of its sin

when he says

Did I whiten you again?

allowing the ripple of his grief

to frame its recollection.

And now remembered

it seems so ancient an event,

that for one long echo

time might stop;

and recommence

in the forgetting

of pitch and sprocket,

or at least hold still long enough

that he can splice

and better understand it.

The dead’s final gift to the living,

this swoop of sorrow,

the violence that Spring wraps tight.