By Geoffrey Dobbs
For Anne
Slight, the fingers’ slip,
but enough.
Brief the fall from light to dark,
a fledgling’s flight, no more.
But enough.
Sparse and few the rocks below,
but enough.
Enough to crack and craze the skull
to untether the ballooning brain
from nerves left sparking madly through
a quivering, rag-doll thing.
Hope flickered once
before the anguish in a darkened room.
Dawn brought termination.
After, grief set the broken lives
in its clumsy, rugged way,
and your body rests now,
beneath a homely sky.
But I cannot think of you there,
asleep, in the ever circling earth.
I see you on the rock face still:
pinioned in the sun’s white flash,
enfolded in the great winds,
and washed by bright rains;
climbing on, towards the blue.
(Image by Josh Withers on Unsplash)