Rachel Korn | Poems

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RACHEL KORN / GRIEF POEMS / ENCOUNTER

Encounter

That’s how they met,
In a dream in the night,
The young girl with loose, flying hair
And the woman on toward sixty.

The girl in her velvet robe
In the portrait with two younger brothers,
Standing stiff in a single row,
Suppressing the laughter on her puckered lips
Over the antics of the village photographer.

They were all together then.

The ailing, young father nearby,
Gazing on the three, little heads,
And aware of the harsh hand then
Taking the measure of his life.
As though he would remember them into eternity,
Taking with him,
The longing and love to the other side.

The young girl hastened somewhere,
Perhaps to keep her rendezvous
With the spring just breaking from its bud.

Or, perhaps,
To flee,
From the strange woman
Barring her way—
Then, why does the woman look upon her so,
As though with her glance
To set ablaze her youthful longing
In the dream of morrow’s fortune?

She stands immobile
As though awaiting someone,
Her lip-corners stamped with grief
Never more to smile,
Human shadows circling ‘round her,
Long burned into dust,
Shadows with outstretched hands,
Where she may hide her face.

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