Anastasia
and the sad snow falling
a toiling sky
and a long white line of hills
a distant birthplace
short span and early dying
pain from what heaven
sorrowed your slope of life?
Through valleys throat
run double veins of water
feverish river
somnolent canal
- the vein of the metal rail
and the trundling roadway
- blood-streams of human needs
- of human growth.
Cell touches cell
in poignant spasmed loving
cells split and flourish
filling the warming womb
limbs open out
with fingers flexing twitching
a body grows
and a tiny mind awakes.
Thirty-three years
- dates only tell of happenings
those limbs endured
that spirit underwent;
what was the tale
and what the final chapter
that led to this skull in the earth
and the white snow falling?
