Armistice (A Warm Gray Sound Like the Sea)

This morning, I listened to the still
of your heart-beat.
Hush-hushing my fears
like the hum of a drum,
From the depths of the valleys
and slow-rising near,
Announcing that peace has finally
come.

And thoughts, bright as soldiers in place for a drill
fell solemnly in line: orderly, neat;
Then like the crimson dawn breaking over the hill,
the slow forward-march of
understanding.


Still your chest rises high and falls low,
And a warm gray sound like the sea
gushes within the coves of my ears
To the tide of breath's ebb and flow.
Look! a lining of silver so strangely
like tears
has run down the sides
of your dear gentle face
and full-circle completes
-like the rim of a fountain where the water
has all but
dried-



For in loss there's a poignant grace.
Dear heart, once so brave in its hope-tinted days,
as a weary old General, gave in



When love laid down its arms and died-