How much sting can a memory hold?
What halls my heart had walked
Between its columns a warmth and I,
Happy in the company of known things:
Whispers in the secret chambers,
Delight in solitude but for you.

The bitter cold,
The hollow shell,
Giving a semblance and structure to that which once was.
Flown is the fleeting sun;
The days were numbered.
Here, the ebb and tide of many tears brought a sting upon this
   beach of skin,
Washed ashore drifting bones and dead things -
The flesh has rot
What once was alive and beautiful -
And left the deep ache of memory
Of a home now lost.