KEYES, Sidney
An early death
This is the day his death will be remembered
By all who weep:
This is the day his grief will be remembered
By all who grieve.
The winds run down the ice-begotten valleys
Bringing the scent of spring, the healing rain.
But the healing hands lie folded like dead birds:
Their stillness is our comfort who have seen him.
But for the mother what can I find of comfort?
She who wrought glory out of bone and planted
The delicate tree of nerves whose foliage
Responded freely to the loving wind?
Her grief is walking through a harried country
Whose trees, all fanged with savage thorns, are bearing
Her boy's pale body worried on the thorns.