A MOURNING SONG

     In memory of Erna Fermie 21 08 03

 The moments of an August silence ominous with breathless air

Screened in a corner hospital bed, a fan hums in the rising heat

Balancing the fathomless depths, you held down your final hours

Unable to accept endless time, a grown up child leaving home

When nothing is left but a blue haze divided in despair.

The road to Woodend still winds as I remember forty years

Midsummer mists of purple waves across lavender fields

Shadows of a mirage followed, darkening beneath my feet

Tremor of the descending sun white crested trees

An empty house, an open gate, numb as winter moors.

Visitor to an unknown world, decades lost minutes to spare

Checking-in late, burdened by weight, the last train gone

Your hand trembles with terror, listening to an unheard song

A four year old’s drawing on a wall Granny come home

But the rose falls from its stem, wind blown in a storm.

This is the Edinburgh Festival you never made it to, an abrupt

Halt, that night of ceaseless rain, the dawn that never came

Declining the rhythm of breath, a gale force drowned in a violent sea

You held your hand, pulling towards the anchor of a floating leaf

As tides recede to vacant years unveiled, a labyrinth of tears.

Filling this hollow time with memories of lost days

Where you walk on winter mornings along forsythia trails

Your daily route, past a vacant lot down St. Albans Way.

Now he wipes your brow, cleans your nails; slowly you slipped away

With your restless eyes you mean something words cannot say.

The lonely evening followed by a night of loud winds

Whirling above your roof, damp paths hidden from daylight

Your silent journey to the chapel, a silence black with vivid shapes

My heart crumbles from end to end covered in dank dust

That Friday, the sky loomed with cloud and infinite stars.

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