Where They Are

Gone the wild nights with the wind whistling,
Their hair mussed and their spirits soaring,
Hilarity reigning at the burst bag in the drenching downpour

Gone the ritual greetings and departures,
The garden and the car and the mortgage payments,
The flesh of their flesh no longer near.

Their lives now merging with the whiteness,
Hear them whisper from the wounded spaces,
“Oh you who are so loving and so tender”
On this other road where they have gone.

March 2004