Joseph Lisowski writes

FROM DEATH’S SILENCE [part V]

WAITING

What can I bring to this life

but long suffering?

I wait for forgiveness

or at least renewal, some change,

anything, even a cold crisp wind

that colors leaves or carries snow.

I wait.

I wait.

I wait for resurrection.

REFRAIN

Yahweh, when you are near

it is in the weeping of my wife.

I do not know what

to make of this ruin,

these wrecked bodies,

broken souls.

Where are you, where

are your ways everlasting?

TURNING TO THE NATURAL WORLD

A restless thrush chirps in dusk

outside my window. The same one,

I suspect, that comes before dawn.

Its happy, intrusive sound mocks

my loss. In spite of myself I listen.

These late rhythms are not light breaking.

Its programmed song is delusion.

Yet, for a moment I convince myself

and get drunk on its lies.

PRAYER

I ask you, my daughter, to bless us,

all of us who struggled against

the love you demanded

and recklessly sought.

THERE ARE ROSES NOW, I'M TOLD

There are roses now, I'm told,

on my daughter's grave.

And a bed of petunias too.

The surrounding earth is flat,

brown in early March.

She was buried North,

near her childhood home.

My hands leveled the soil

where her body lay.

The wounds I opened were hot.

Steam rose from the ache.

Tears I dropped avoided them.

Later, they froze in the night.

My vigil does not end.

My hands, raw as winter earth,

still feel the broken ground.

I cannot hope but wish

my heavy arms could squeeze her

until her body warmed.