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Inscription in Stone: New England Cemetary

“It is a fearful thing to love, what Death can touch.”

And so it is.

I know, for I love you

through all our restless days,

waves crashing blue-black, frothy white,

against our spilling sands,

so rich, so sweet, so deep

and fine it is, it was,

to know your skin,

to taste your tongue, your salty lips.

They say that you are with me still.

In which closed chamber of my closed heart?

Tell me, whisper,

“I am here,”

and I will tear, with my own hands,

that throbbing heart,

and press it to my open breast

to hold you one small moment more.

It is, indeed, a fearful thing, this love,

this dance into the light.

The fingers snap,

the partners change,

the music patters on again,

unheeding, uninvited, unaware.

by Lynda La Rocca – Twin Lakes, CO
Originally published in The Anthology of New England Writers, 2002; New England Writers, Windsor, Vermont.