He stood in the shadows of a pine

and took a knife. The afternoon was still,

beech leaves had begun to curl and burn

and roots dug still deeper into soil

the sun had scorched and searched all day for rain.

He cut into the rough bark her name

in all the many languages of love

as the sheep slept round him in the shade;

he cursed in wet wood and sap his loss

while the day cooled like a stone;

he carved the few words of hers he’d kept

as the evening breeze whispered in the grove;

and then as darkness fell he read again

her words with stumbling fingers, and he wept.

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