I remember so well when you broke my heart.
It was not passionate, or romantic, or anything like what the books described.
The park we sat in, was so quiet that the beats of my heart sent pulses along the ground and up to the branches of the trees above us.
I can still see the picnic rug when I shut my eyes. Lined blue and red, I ran my fingers across it, much like I used to your spine.
You spoke of your new girl, the way I wished you would speak of me.
Eleonora. You told me.
Your Ellie, Your Leo, Your Norie.
Although it was not this that had pained me.
It was what happened next.
It was the way you turned to me, with your ever fluorescent eyes
and asked me how I was.
It was the way I looked at you and lied.
"Good".

All the flowers that you planted Eleonora
All died when you went to your grave
Angels cry blood tears for you
Centuries after you passed away

(To Eleonora Duse)

We are anhungered after solitude,
Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,
Soft quiet hovering over pools profound,
The silences that on the desert brood,
Above a windless hush of empty seas,
The broad unfurling banners of the dawn,
A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun;
Our souls are fain of solitudes like these.
O woman who divined our weariness,
And set the crown of silence on your art,
From what undreamed-of depth within your heart
Have you sent forth the hush that makes us free
To hear an instant, high above earth’s stress,
The silent music of infinity?