Comment, After A Death
By Bill Duvall

the word has gotten out now
you are gone
you just stopped breathing
though the stars rolled burning on

you know not sifting coffee pots
nor percolating urns
nor Sapphos seeing you in the dregs
nor breakfast in the sun
nor Timas in the cold

I'll see you
almost faintly soon
deciduous apparition
crossing in the starched attire
that they sdank you in

you will not feign as you did then

but shall endure as long
as everlasting vacuums are filled
by natures such as mine

II

it could be said of you
lying in the excrescences of snow
not knowing that Shelley beats his luminous
wings in the void in vain
above your grave (you never heard of
Matthew Arnold either) that time
protects and packs the dark
machine-like bearings of your eyes

the lines are down and birds
warp silence gladly where you sang!

Retired federal employee, Baltimore realtor, whose poems have appeared in many poetry journals over the years. Father, grandfather, playwright, actor, director, business manager...what can I say!!