refrain in a planed vein

'is the pain retained,
as it's plainly ingrained
in our plaintive, waning strains?

does it plumb the depths
to encumber their lumber?
splinter their cinders
or hinder their tinder?

does it trouble the murdered
listless flowers
in their glassy,
stilted repose?

and must i explain
though lifeblood has drained,
lying here helplessly,
achingly missing the rain

what it felt like
to be embraced by
sun-dappled birds,

and the hope spun in nests,

and the confidences laid up
in scurrying
surreptitious scratches?

faint echoes shimmer
in the weave of grieving leaves,
rustling empathy
for their stories.

like the call of
phantom branches
i never stop feeling,
keening from that
unabated hunger
to give them shelter

from which they'll
forever abstain.

in quiet mornings
i think i hear
their trilling songs
and something inside me
seems to shudder.

who decreed these
inconceivable,
irretrievable gifts
should be squandered
by those who
can't even see them?

and what of weathered seasons,
and the constant,
ineffable yearning
in that
oh, so infinite reach?

has it all been in vain?'

"that's what i hear,"
she said
as her fingers lingered
on the unexplored,
heartbroken surface
of vetted and fretted,
life-indebted wood.

* **** * *** * **** * *** * **** *
- Evan Hawthorn, the 30^th of June, 2017