run

The wood melts away 
the fire dies, all the voices 
fade and the room goes 
quiet

on a rainy day with a 
cool force wind I sit 
and touch with mental 
fingers the moments I

could not hold in my hand, 
keep, restore, maintain, 
preserve, for all things 
fade and the bright 
eyes dim and

once they are gone 
you wonder
if they really have been 
the bright scenes 
woven into memory's 
skein, a tapestry to 
touch and hold

in place of real skin.

The presence lost 
is the awful thing: 
death the moment 
taking

	then the silence 

	the empty gap 

	the void in the 

	centre of the day 

	the hole in the hand 

	the severed heart

and all the partings 
in all the world 
just like this one.

Fingers fade 
and sadness lingers

on the tongue 
the taste of death 
a bitter run.

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