The laughing pretty faces
frozen eternally on a sunlit
yellow
winter afternoon
Cast shadows on the brick wall
outside my fence

I settle in my armchair
smelling the scent of coming spring
and its distant whispers
and remember

The day you fell out of grace
The night I did
The distances
and the hours
between unaccustomed landscapes
of every tortured mind

When did I become a romantic?
Why didn't you?
The day you died
with my laughter

Why the pain?
Why the longing?
Why the rain?
Why the hours?