Luke Whitington: Message with no address
Message with no address
For Louise Gluck
Like a letter opened
Years later, the poem read
Like a forgotten confidence, words blurred and faded
From a friend you knew for a while
From a friend across the border of another life—
Her voice is audible
Through softening light
Tinkling amongst the whispering of leaves
It must be winter there, you surmise
Were these messages that waited for an answer
Or echoes murmuring after an ending
The real endings like leaves suspended around her head.
The stars shine down gilding the midnight grass
Can I hear silence and a season moving off in a different arc?
Do I hear the drone of an echo from the neck of a beached bottle?
Did the waves roll, sway and wash your voice all the way to here?
Thoughts idle—did the sea drift timelessly
With your time, your words, your place
In time, to tell me something, something to carry away
Your yearning, your whispers of greeting now kept with me
Transported as far as this…
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