Tuesday, November 1, 2011

How many chairs?

How many times
can we sit and watch
the sun die in their eyes,
the floor beneath us
wet with tears;
how many empty chairs?
And yet we still believe
that once we turn away,
accept the night,
that morning will come again;
that if we turn and face,
not past, but future,
light will fill the sky again,

a slow pure drift,
trickling along the edge of mourning;
clouds lit like memories,
a spark of anticipation
before -- as in winter --
it falls again, this gray; this grief,
muffling all light and joy,
and still we see the shapes around us
take on form;
dawn's soft illumination still unfolds,
to bring again
that sharp bright ache of longing.

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