Summer Snow

“Summer Snow”
[Dedicated to the memory of Mark Henry]

What is this I see past the summer snow?
To what land or vision hence didst thou go?
There are ashes that rain where once a figure stood,
While the light that dims there, they say, was good.

What shall I say at the funerary rite?
That dawn follows so dark a night?
What shall be read as we gather around
One wilted rose in the consecrated ground?

As the raindrops of spring give way to solstice,
The Heavens rove without notice
Of the loss I feel below these stars that lie
In death within the canopy of the sky—

When their light reached you, as it reaches me
Was it the same moon shining you would see?
Or did we live a space of separate atmospheres,
Mine breathing on while yours disappears?

Alas! Thy singing soul we cannot seal,
And there is not one hour more that we can steal
To hear you speak of what brings you bliss,
And in sorrow we say, “We were friends of his.”

We sing not as the pall is lowered across
The form that is the love of our loss.
And what can be sung? What hymn raised to the sky,
To the newly belovèd dead who chose his day to die?

A meeting may be brief, and a parting be forever.
And we today are gathered here together
For a lifetime of one farewell as the candle dies
And summer snow marks the grave where he lies.

© 2022 Marten Hoyle