Lost

It’s loss reminds us all the best of love

Our grief a hollow where the thing belongs

Still memories float on surfaces above

The absent space; the silence in the throng

Of voices, obligations, crowded space

Where images surrender to the noise

Of kinfolk gathered with bewildered haste

to share some comfort’s glow in kinship’s joys

Three times a thousand miles from afar

I breathe a prayer of love and sorrow both

The birds are sipping nectar from the jar

The trees are greening out the spring’s first growth

No one ever leaves, we only change

The whole of what is lost, our hearts contain