I am
thinking of age
driving past the
familiar
this tree, so wide around
this house, never painted but
just
grey
the river, cold gunmetal
below the
road, running my eye
taking the faint sun
that finds it
and I
remark that this year
has been quiet in the way
of leaves- brown blight, rain, the
sharp frost that I scrape
white to my
knuckles in the morning
Were they better before? I don't
want to remember
and I can say,
Rose, I know
this need to be still, to stop
going forward in a way
I could not when you died-
to hold this air, and have it
stay,
sharp as stars
within
me.