Enigma

I have written nothing in the year since your death:

words elude me, as they did so frequently during

our time together.

It is a complicated grief, one

I don't wish to explain --or

cannot.

An emptiness exists where my body

should be, my feet cannot find the

reassurance of solid ground, as if I

am being tugged after you.

When spring arrives, the

garden needs me.

its work tires me with its physical demands so that

sleep comes easily, while writing - writing, I argue,

exists only in my head which is already over-

burdened with inconsistencies.

It is a short argument, for writing too exhausts me,

as if I have climbed a high mountain and perch, for an

indeterminate time, on a precipice edge before

making my way back down carrying the few words I

have gathered along the way.

Summer passes. The garden blossoms.

At night I dream the scent of jasmine and

of rosemary planted by the door.

In the morning there are footprints on the damp grass

as if a search has been conducted: something is lost,

or is it someone?

Is my heart the thing sought? I know one piece

is lost forever: it flew out the car window on

the wings of revelation years before. There had

been no point in searching for it - the damage

was irreparable - though if I am forced to

drive that route again, my chest vibrates at a

certain spot on the road.

The rest of that day remains a blank

as if the compression of events into so few words

contains everything of significance.

But the period of erasure haunts me.

Summer's end brings a familiar bitter-sweet scent --

earth opening to fold me back in.

A friend joins me in the last of summer warmth.

as she often does when she feels a certain sadness settle around

her. I know it is not to burden me that she comes: there is a

sense of something shared.

She confides that she may not need to return so frequently.

It asks a lot of us, she continues, grief and this paying of

forgotten dues.

We are both silent with our thoughts.

Leaves fall, as the small shard of heart did,

soundless - perhaps there is significance,

even in silence.

When she leaves, she looks back at the garden.

It's all here, she says - endings and

beginnings,

and a strange sense of forgiveness.

Long after her departure her words

balance on currents of air.

My tongue reaches out to embrace them.