To a widow

With frankincense and bells of parting
We will open our books again
Before the icon of the Resurrection,
And sing the Byzantine Trisagion
As we tread the carpet in dumb procession,
While the people wail in desolation.

 Ah, How I hurt you!
I did not intend
To break the shell,
Expose your grief,
Leaving you open
To the bleak future,
The life departed,
Disconsolate.

 Remember, when your tears have dried
The transitoriness of life
That sails in glory with the tide,
Then meeting the indifferent wave,
In the overwhelming strife
Feels the shock of mortality
And is subsumed in eternity.

We will know each other still
Though no ethereal heaven waits.
To resurrection in ourselves,
We will awake when the sun arises,
Image made perfect at the end of time.

2017