The Widow's Song

Midnight brings lullabies on the breeze
The wail of the widow softens the streets
A lingering loss, echoed elegies
Sung to the stars, a crooning cat weep
(til death, til death, my soul cannot sleep)

Once upon a time, this damsel distressed
Left by her knight, to veil and black dress
one body, one breath, one unbalanced bed
an unmet embrace, an absent caress
(til death, til death, undying unrest)

Black and white photos, grayed in their frames
They’d planned for children, picked out their names
His letters from war, she’d held while she prayed
Yet pen made a promise three bullets betrayed
(my James, my James, to where have you strayed?)

The days lay dust, tear ducts drain dry
A ripple of wrinkles in grief undisguised
though none heard the pain, a whimper or cry
Only her song, her dulcet goodbye
(til death, til death, til our tryst in the sky)


Each afternoon, she waits for his ghost
Alone and composed, refolding his clothes
Remembers emotion, mourning’s first throes
Feeling was warmth, since numbed in the cold
(you spoke, you spoke, of how we’d grow old)

I approached her once, to ask of her aim
In nightly reciting sorrow’s refrain
“til God, til God, grants me a grave,
Til death, til death, til debts are repaid.”

“and if there’s no heaven, if no soul is saved?
If God is a wish, what then would you crave?
Coming from dust, only dust can you claim,
no God to arraign, no romance regained.”



She turned, undisturbed, and softly did say

“I’ll sing to damn people, the wars they wage,
Every rock will resound a vibrating rage
I’ll sing the skies gray, the children insane,
The winds will whisper a dead husband’s name

This world will not spin, but pulsate and sway
In constant cadence, in endless replay
This empty universe will flood with grace
As my song resonates through time and space


You want to seem brave, I know you’re afraid
you doubt being seen by a distant god’s gaze
But I know my song has found my sweet James
because bodies may break, but sound only fades
far from our ears, to celestial glades
to explore what exists echoes away”
(far from our ears, far from our graves)