For Jane, Valentine’s Day, 2016
My heart is colder than the arctic wind
That drives the snow across your quiet grave
And etches deeper scars across my soul.
My heart remains more empty than the corpse
That lies beneath the granite stone that marks
And mars my waking and my sleeping dreams.
My soul aches blood and screams your single name.
The wind tears words and screams apart like dust
And scatters thought like stars across a winter sky.
This winter cold endures. No fire will take
Nor light emerge to fill the empty space
Your end has set about my noisome life.
And yet my love grows stronger—reaches note
And song and dances patterns darkness scans
For meaning. We are light unquenched by death.
All my love, always and all ways,
—Hubby
Editor’s Note: Each year, I wrote Jane poems for our anniversary and Valentine’s Day. It is a tradition I have continued since her death. Yesterday, I read this poem at her grave and left a copy of it there. Normally, I would have left flowers there as well–but with the weather as it is, that seemed a pointless exercise. Instead, I took a heart wreath made of vines and set it in front of the headstone. It has also become my tradition since her death to post the poems I write for her here.
