Читать книгу Lines from Collings Hill - Nellie Hunt Collings - Страница 5

TO NELLIE—FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A CENTURY

How lonely. How distressing.

A farmstead cabin trapped in snow,

No faces to see

But family—

No other voices, thoughts, minds

To share her dreams,

Her words.

How lonely. How distressing.

Day upon day no mail nesting in the

Rural box

Beyond

The gate where peeled cottonwood

Uprights took root

And grew.

How lonely. How distressing.

A daughter lost just as they began

To mesh in mind—

A son required

By war to travel over seas and then

Returned to wed

A distant love.

How lonely. How distressing.

To watch her one love age and twist—

To know her home

Once more as loss—

To feel a mind grow wretched and

Infirm—then vague—

And finally gone

How lonely. How distressing.

To know her only through old blurring

Photographs—see

Her but not hear her,

Not partake of laughter, wit,

Or voice, or heart,

Or Poetry.

—Michael R. Collings,

With Love