In the furthest away place
my beloved is buried
in the wedding gown she never wore
beneath a bleached white stone.

Her name cannot be recalled
by the morning rain
or the thousand-year-old tree
it is lost to all memory.

One night she unravelled the rivers
and tied her hair with them like ribbons
She stole a seashell and held it to my ear
so I could hear the roaring ocean
and she said “nothing will ever part us;
not water, not distance, not even death”

and whenever I see a dove in flight
as elegant and graceful as she was
I smile and think to myself
That maybe the most beautiful souls become doves.