- in memory of Harmona Potter, 1913 - 2002 -
Brush my window, flying rain.
There are things, as you tell me, that are not to be regained.
Brush my table, brush my floor.
Brush the shadows of the shadows that have vanished through the door.
Brush my patience, tender mist,
and the barren sprig of recollections gathered in my fist.
Brush my chimney, brush my stair.
Brush the lisps of the devotions that were given to the air.
Tell me, rainfall – tell me the pace
of the lives that reflect me in that window’s other face.
Say for me what sorrows they tell.
Say of love and its letters – the forgotten
sayings they spell.
Brush my window, flying rain.
Do they verge on each other in that light behind the pane?
Brush my cradle, brush my grave.
Brush the clown and the hero, brush the villain and the knave.
Brush my losses, falling drops.
Cleanse the rooms deep inside me from the bottoms to the tops.
Brush that canyon, brush that hole.
Brush the shadows in the vacuums…
that fill up my soul.
Tell me, rainfall – tell me the pace
of the lives that reflect me in that window’s other face.
Say for me what sorrows they tell.
Say of love and its letters – the forgotten
sayings they spell.