I dread the poem I shall one day write
To read to those who knew you, knew your heart,
The kindness of your soul.
Its rhymes are phantoms in my mind;

They have not lived, and yet shall never die,
And try as I may I cannot stop them.
They are as horses in a desert,
Thundering through the dust to the end.
Every page filled is practice for that day
When I sit and write and die.
And I shall read my words – your words really,
For they have always belonged to you –
And they will listen, those mourners;
They will watch as I remember.
As the poem finally breathes,
And I fall apart for you who put me together.

by Rachel Bruce