Elegy and Sequence for T.D.

By Bob Zisk

Dark Current: for Terry, Who Died on May 9, 2023
Nuestras vidas son los ríos
que van a dar en la mar
que es la muerte...

I

Today the first crepe myrtle burns to white
On slender stems and languid, drooping sprays.
The sun's exsanguinating shower of light
Drains the soft, purple blooms. And as the days

Slide by, in their bright river of clear rays,
Rolling down to the wide, receptive sea --
The sea of death which harbors fierce ospreys
That snatch our terminal mortality --

We are swallowed in that mystery
Of ineluctable extinction, death
Which rides dark rhythms of eternity
And swallows life's last rattling burst of breath.

II

Malae Tenebrae Orci: Wicked Shades of Death

Now I lay me down to sleep --
Soon I too will enter Hell's keep..
Five days ago, as the Sky cried,
Word came to me: Terry had died.

Here, in the mountains, it was cold
And damp, and I was feeling old.
I was two years older than her,
Yet only I heard mid-Spring stir

Through pale cloth of stifled pain
And solitary drops of rain,
For she lay elsewhere…