Finite
By Hannah Six
I promised
a heron
slate-feathered
bare-limb balanced
who tilted his head
and an interlude
of ice petals
stuttering and livid
singing with envy
and other longings
these years — pale tides
swift and teeming
— or hollow
as a distant train
scoring the still surface
of 3 a.m. waking
you asked ordinary
things I promised
to tell some
and you taught
patience and I hoped
you would
be so
yet supine peering
into snowfall
testing
each crystal blessing
remember
how you dreamt
you had grown old
thin days
imprecicely numbered
(c) 2022, by Hannah Six