In troubled light the old man sat
turning the pages of a darkened book
while on the grass lay his Summer hat
occasionally splashed by a strumming brook;
her lovely face was drawn there
in smooth, fluid lines
echoing her dark gleaming hair
the coal black hue of coal black mines;
his sighs were those of empty years
his sadness that of endless regret,
his wrinkled eyes were calloused tears
where death had already set.
The portrait complete he began another
of a memory, a distant love,
an enduring wish, a long departed lover
packed away with his clouded brain's crippled stuff.