There’s an empty spot
where you used to be,
brittle as a branch,
longing for touch.
Empty but brittle
that doesn’t make sense
you say with quick wit.
Well this is a poem
and you are a story
and the place you left
is brittle and empty;
I know as I touch it.
I drop your story
into deep water,
watch the tide line
curl around the splash,
dissolving hardness
with the weight of water.
The Earth forgave
so long ago
and now do we,
the empty space filled,
the brittle branch
become soft green
beside the changing sea.

photograph by Louis MacKenzie