Across the channel
wind driven waves
push against flood tide
under dark cloud
and threat of rain.
Snow covers the highlands
holding back the summer,
kin to the ice within
hardened and unmoving.
I feel you across the water,
grey wave, darkened depth
and the cold a wall between us
refusing to be breached.
More to this than temperature,
the story written on a headstone
cut and shaped by all we lost.
Sympathy reaches out
before the wall can stop it,
the warmth of forgiveness
passing through the barrier
with a gentleness forgotten.
Thick cloud and cold water
layer above and below
yet in the garden of memory
the ground begins to yield.
photograph by Rebecca Hynes
Beautiful! Thanks!
Very strong, Don. May sympathy and warmth prevail over all the walls.
Last week in Yellowstone Park: one person died of hypothermia after kayak capsize in Yellowstone Lake, avg. temp. 43F. one person died of hyperthermia and severe scalding from fall into a hot spring. Both extremes in close proximity. Drowning has no witness, only the darkness that ensues. Only the drowned know its secret.
Thank God the ground begins to yield!
Lovely.
Don: great piece but I don’t understand the comment about Yellowstone drownings in relation to this poem.
Thanks, Don! Always so beautiful and touching!