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When
your long ago hair was darker and less silver
he
took claim of you and showed you off,
a
coronation mantle worn over your other names.
He dug fingers into your flanks which you yielded up
mineral and heart wood, ages formed in your belly,
fruit from a plentiful orchard, young and unpicked.
Then came the end, the flow dimmed, your bed grew dry,
stony pillows emptied of dust, he panned your complexion,
leaving you gutted, a hollow paramour with a pitted face.
Separated from love, your desolation stretched inside
trees bare and penetential shaking as inward lakes filled with tears,
a ravaged peninsula broken by a lover's insubstantial passage.
Yet as year followed year nature has returned to you,
side by side, day and night are not alone, they have the other,
drawing flowers and birds and trees, the new homecomers.
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