A man is standing in the
His house not recognizing.
Her sudden leaving was a flight,
Herself, maybe, surprising.
The chaos reigning in the
He does not try to master.
His tears and headache hide in
The extent of his disaster.
His ears are ringing all day
As though he has been drinking.
And why is it that all the
Of waves he keeps on thinking?
When frosty window-panes blank
The world of light and motion,
Despair and grief are doubly
The desert of the ocean.
She was as dear to him, as
In all her ways and features,
As is the seashore to the wave,
The ocean to the beaches.
As over rushes, after
The swell of water surges,
Into the deepness of his
Her memory submerges.
In years of strife, in times which
Unthinkable to live in,
Upon a wave of
To him she had been driven,
Through countless obstacles, and
All dangers never-ended,
The wave had carried, carried her,
Till close to him she'd landed.
And now, so suddenly, she'd left.
What power overrode them?
The parting will destroy them both,
The grief bone-deep corrode them.
He looks around him.
On the
In frantic haste she'd
The contents of the cupboard,
Of stuff, her sewing patterns.
He wanders through deserted
And tidies up for hours;
Till darkness falls he folds
Her things into the drawers;
And pricks his finger on a
In her unfinished sewing,
And sees the whole of her again,
And silent tears come flowing.
