Elegy
The breath of music that you were
Does not negate the agate sky
Or minimize this difficult day
Of your departure. There was a hint
Of early spring this soft-iced morning;
Rimed wet, the birch's twigs were bleak
As talons in the watered air;
A blackbird stitched across the snow
A short-lived temporary suture
On worn-down melting drifts. Absurd,
Your artist life but half-begun,
Sweet child, in this disquieting year
To leave us desolate!, the burr,
A knothead in your heart; the wry
Rough cruel visitation, a
Deleterious growth, unspent