Loneliness

Has it been as lonely
a winter as mine.
Storminess has shaken
heaven's masterpiece,
Joni Mitchell plays
simpatico in weeping rhythm.
                     
It is dark now and
the fresh burial place
seems almost invisible.
Still, these souls
await resurrection.
                     
My loneliness is layered,
filed within my brain.
At times I glimpse my profile.
I look, I feel.
I ponder, I worry.

I examine with tears,
and despair
over all I have done,
and all I have
failed to do.

These sins of omission
paralyze my memory
and haunt me in winter,
as I bury a mother
or a sister.
                     
Today I scratch verse,
words on parchment,
if only to find meaning;
a sign to show
how I have lived.