mourning

An Epitaph

/ Aphelia / Leave a comment

Will the earth

With my bones

Swallowed

Find the marrow

Lacks?

Will the grey

Veined clay

Gather in the

Defects?

Will the stones

Laugh?

Carried in the water

In rivulets

With the weight of

Evaporated eons.

In red, roaring wastes,

Will the water wait?

Carving earth in

Mountain and canyon,

What will it make

Of the hollow things that

Once held this shape?

When scattered

Will I finally

Be lovely?

Will I finally be

Comely when

Rearranged?

A promise

Like feathers,

Like lead

Cradled in

The trembling

Of existence.

The ache

Burrowed

And silenced

In silt.

MJGS 3/2/22

Aggregate

/ Aphelia / Leave a comment

Moss covered stone

Sun beckoned

The snow runs off,

Stays in shadow.

Petrichor and

Woodsmoke.

Its said to

Follow beauty,

But forgets.

Swift water flows,

Slows at the bend

In the middle frozen

Hand outstretched

Hard pack and

Hardpan

Veins of quartz

Veins of clay

Dust and ash

Pockmarked with

Grinding rock

Laden and vacant

A thousand years.

Shot rock

In granite

In agate

In aggregate.

Pine needles

In a panic.

Wind summoned.

The sun sets

And fills pockets

Valleys

Inlets

Seethes against

Mountainside.

Long strides

And echo

Against cliff face.

Falling and fallen

Pebbles and ember.

Oxygen fed and

Carbon starved

Stars burn and

Scatter

Then

Burrow

Nestle

Soften the

Darkness.

The long walk.

/ Aphelia / Leave a comment

Time is considered the fourth dimension. A force of nature. It is also interwoven with the fabric of space, warped and wobbled by the gravity of heavy celestial objects.

Loss makes us acutely aware of the passage of time, the weight of it like water pouring over us and carrying us away.

The last time I saw my father is at a fixed point in spacetime. That moment hangs suspended, immovable, immutable, and a part of me with it. We have sped away from that point at 130 miles per second for 18 years.

We are now 73794240000 miles from the last I love you. The Milky Way flung from the singularity, inexplicably, irrevocably.

Loss leaves us separated not only by time but an unfathomable distance. My grief, our grief is the long walk back.

Third of June comes too soon.

/ Aphelia / Leave a comment

There are eighteen
Between you and I,
Times around an
Unflinching sun.
In that time stung
With cat o’ nine tails,
I have been in love twice,
And three human beings
Brought through me.
Baby’s breath
from a funeral wreath
In a vase by the sink.
Baby teeth from
A boy who looks
Just like me.
In summer’s insistent
Crematory,
You would hate to
Spectate silently
While my worlds end.
And If your bones could weep,
If they could bleed
Or fight, or if you could
Throw yourself
Again into the fire,
You would,
To save me from
The Moirai.
Six thousand five
Hundred and seventy days
Since your heart
Gave out and
I’ve been
Pinned against
The indifferent earth,
Having forgotten
The gravity
In your voice
The last time you
Said you loved me.
Weak force
Fighting
Weak force.