Thirty years passed
like a dark flight of
small birds across
a half-blue moon.

I watched through
a keyhole of grief,
viewpoint diminished
like medicated pain.

I watched lemens
climb skyward,
remembering as
they fell away
into the night’s
silent smile.

With you no longer,
there is no wealth
of consolation. I am
as frail as a rag,
my will a withered
fruit.

How pure a thing is joy
that I no longer know,
my heart espaliered
to a wall of silence
and the sorrows of distance
that never scatter away.