Gap in the Clouds

I know the tiresome emptiness off loss

Whispered prayers wind around me

tight as a linen sheet

I would rather hear the gale raging through the oak

than hear such words

I farm a gap in the clouds

My own father would make fierce account

of how my dreams aged him twenty years

though the rocks whisper he was ruined

by long harsh years behind the plough

My mother dreamed winds from temperate lands 

might blow across his brow

but rain and stone and sickly beasts filled his mind

Drab were the mourners in Horeb

who saw him fade into the earth

The only light was in the eyes 

of those he will curse no more