I.
There in the earthrain,
there with wet ashes,
where did her soul go ?
II.
The mistake he made
is he thought they had time,
stabbed by the sudden thought of her.
III.
After he splits his firewood and wheels it
to the old house, he likes to sit on the porch
and listen to his blood roar.
IV.
In an empty farmhouse on winter fields
where echoes were the only kindred voices,
the blue-veined hand wrote self, self, self.
V.
Goodbye poets, goodbye painters,
the world once made more sense,
and I loved you.
VI.
Hoarfrost feathered daybreak—
the flight of a crow, the rustle of an oak leaf—
how strange to be alive on the earth.
VII.
Snowbirds pecked in the flattened grass,
solitary he spread his arms and held everything
that was slipping away together.
—with lines by Michael Ondaatje
