Under a goose moon, he calls amongst the lament of waves, whispering in ripples.
Spring arrives once more. Is it really time to start thinking about death again? Everything’s a reminder since he lost her.
Yesterday was laundry day for the man that feeds bread to the ducks. He passed his bungalow on Dorsey Road, and did a double-take – he could’ve sworn the breeze that stirred the drying white shirts to motion had possessed them of her likeness: that elegant neck, that way she glides; he always thought it processional, but the word’s funereal.
The spears of spring buds turn coronet to crown to veil, as they’re born, bloom and seed; reap and sow, ebb and flow.
He considers their lineage; forever to be a sole, white yacht lost amongst an ocean of drab tugboats. Or perhaps she still has the energy to make a fleet, after all.
Just not with him.
He casts roses for love, and a lotus for peace, onto the waters that took him. She ignores them for the ranunculus and reedmace she scoops and drapes like bunting for a wedding that’ll never happen.
His grief deepens to see her moving around the now-derelict home they’d made under April showers and the ember sunsets of May. Round and around she goes, an implacable hour hand; Death’s scythe, murdering time.
Searching.
For him?
What’s his part in this? To observe? To counsel?
If so, he’d say, ‘Have hope! Enjoy what you have left. Stop this Havishammery – she had nothing to teach except the blessedness of white. Although our next tryst may be one of spirit, I know it’s coming.’
He knows, because he has faith.
He knows, because he has time.
But mostly, because he knows where swans go when their loved one dies.
Manus Gloriae In graveyards we live, so you can thrive. But you flee — to…