Viola tricolor

Heartsease

Dark the garden’s weeping wood

Bleeding its fading

Inside a votive and a word:

“It’s only raining,”

Raining words that fall

Too near the heart

Outside, Viola tricolor, a

World apart

A part of balm, of

Heartsease lulls old pain

Two parts of sprung-life waking
Wraiths entrain

Rain drops on Hollyhocks

      Traducing night

Wax drips from candlesticks

Translating light

A light, a word

A pausing into day

A parsing of the elements

An element of play

Plays on in music

Surging deep

Dark and sparkling

In time to keep

Keeping faith

Till break of day

Breaking bread

Come what may

  May becalm phantom pain

 Till ghosts embark

                      Breathing salt sea air again

 As skies turn dark

   Dark the garden’s sparkling wood

 Hiding its shading

   Inside time’s ticker wicks the word:

  “It’s finished raining,”