ANNIVERSARY

You will not understand
why I’ve returned.
Perhaps, lying there,
you don’t understand
anything of the living.
I’ve returned, however,
to speak with you again.
(Wet and clear
the hillside)
I still think of you
your face, hair
grey
in your kingdom of smoke.
I’ve not the vision for more.
Perhaps that’s not how things are,
your death is unfathomable.
I’ve returned to speak with you.
I’m here. You understand
nothing. I’ve forgotten you
so much and I’ve been able
to forget you so little.
I’m happy: sometimes
I don’t remember you
(perhaps that is also death?)
I don’t know whether you understand me,
or whether
you’re here or gliding
through an air
that’s never
weighed upon my lips.
(The hill is lonesome though
as it might be under your sky.)
But listen if you can.
On a day like today
the snow fell,
a tumult. I fulfill,
pointlessly, the ritual. I put
this tombstone here. It doesn’t matter;
you can’t understand me.
Everything has failed.