- this morning lingers, a soft wind blows,
- and light wraps around the southerly bark of the buckeye
- stripped almost bare of leaf.
- other days leave other impressions, but today stands still
- until a cacophony of crows take flight overhead
- and time resumes its motion across the face of the sky.
- in my grieving I forget how I could conjure you
- from the gray mist and blurry silhouettes of houses and trees,
- how able to discern you in fronds and flowers
- when your absence was less than eternal and your presence always ephemeral.
- now that you are gone forever I cannot create you;
- land, sky, and water no longer lend me a palate
- with which to brush you into being.
- all renderings of you are false
- because you are not here to contradict them.
- could you not return to me?
- could you not slip through the thin veil between this world and yours
- without disturbing the universe?
- I am greedy, I admit. I would want you back for good.
- I want to argue with you again and again,
- find fault with your nature over and over,
- hear your footsteps in the hallway,
- see your figure held against the light in the kitchen
- as outside I stare at you through the window pane.