All the kindness possible
was not enough. Willing lips,
fingers stroke and caress.
Still, time and rain
Like tears demand.

Words bring no comfort.
And big-hearted women,
their frailty revealed,
cannot help but sigh
at the urgency
pressed upon struck eyes.
Minutes turn not to hours.
Lips search like fingers.
Sun stands trapped beyond the edge.
Hands stroke like hearts beat.
Memory and rain
outlast the night.

Outside, the wind moves on
and the trees must not bend
but I am not the wind and,
though the roots spread wide
through the lace of time,
I cannot bend upon demand.

Jamie Cavanagh