For Joan

It was with a tear strained phone call,
Screeching it's insistant banshee song
The kind you answer, knowing, feeling
The worrisome trepidation of farewell,
That I was told your spirit had gone,
Though I felt you depart the night before
In a moment of sudden vacant despondency
In sharp contrast to the joy and laughter
I experienced in the company of those I love
Just a bare few minutes previously
As your phantom deserted the frailty
The sickness of your corporeal body
For one free of sorrow and agony
Joining a presence greater than ours.
Then, we accompanied the weeping choir
Singing wails of our loss, dear and empty
As the memories of the cursory hours,
Each one a grain of sand, trickling
Through the desperate grasping fingers,
As if they were faded photographs
Flipping through a dust stained album
Such as that time you.....
Or that time when we....
The recollections of hearing the song,
The music of your impassioned soul.
The air hummed from your essence
Has ebbed to an indistinct murmur
Attenuated by the sounds of the wind
Bearing you away. It is that strain
Your tune, that will be missed until
The day comes when we harmonise
Together once more, raising our voices
Chanting the Dreaming to the shadowed sky.

nt