Gail Johnston - aubade

For the Meijers: Rick, Hein, Janne & Sanders

What if you woke one day and death was less
in sight: as a bed beneath a comforter,
as grass when snow fall overnight: if feathers
added up to eiderdowns and flakes of snow to veils
of white, to a world transformed and yet familiar
          as a dream transfigures life?

What if one day, out walking, someone heard
you sigh, then say Still, there is beauty—though
spring comes without him? What if loss is not all
that's left? If sorrow, like snow, indelibly alters,
leaves you enwrapped in a shawl of mellifluous
memories, enrapt, perusing a sheaf of melt-water scores;
each a confluent transcription, a season transposed
          stone to tones to notes
written in audible ink, reiterating Still, there is beauty

Still, there is love
and longing and grief, season after season
every rendition a leaf in the manuscript
          all one can do is write.