Remains

Ageless and vague, your face remains

For me to conjure up. I can recall

You underneath this willow tree,

Right here where I stand now

To watch the flutter of your vanishing,

As if your being gone were something solid

That a long-grown child could touch-

Your cheek, your arm. I can recall,

As if eternal in their vanishing,

Your features whose pale blur remains

As long as I can think of vanishing

As something like an autumn tree that's here,

Moving in place at the slight touch

Of hazy air, though fervent green is gone

And your last words are now beyond recall.

Why then should I exert the effort to hold on

When even memory is vanishing

And the blank sense of what is gone,

Your veined, small hands, suffuses what is here,

A space of absence that remains,

So that when I reach out to touch

The rough bark of the willow tree

As evidence that something still remains,

I am reminded freshly that you're gone,

Recalling what I barely can recall,

Your round face vivid in its vanishing.

Your touch no longer here, the whitened air

Of your dissolving look remains to dwell upon

And make your face seem fresh-the lost,

Eternal face of what is gone.