In the darkest final hours,
  I began to write

And my words now spoken new
  from scattered ashes light the sky

To begin and end each day
  caught up in beauty’s distant wake

All loneliness filled by pages lined
with happiness and joy

My fate betrothed, once mistress
  scorned
   —a lover more than wife

Whose vision so much sharper,
  her dissection cuts through bone

To slay the muted dragon’s fire
  in present elocution

Beyond all past and future clouds
  above the darkening storm

To live each breath and gifted word
  that heaven sends pristine

Never destitute in blessings shown
  —or in things I wish I’d said

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)