Sonnet IV

by Laurel Stowe

When sunlight probes my eyelids after dawn,

It is so hard to open them to see

This empty day and know that I will be

In empty rooms and find your shadows gone

With yesterday still close. A bitter blow

That memories now are but a thing of dust.

Tears sting my eyes with pain of broken trust,

For you are gone where I shall never go.

Sometimes a whisper comes to me to tell

My spirit of an angel loved by God,

A son of morning, light to worlds that fell,

And tore hearts with him, sound of one-third’s laud.

So comes again a thought I cannot shake—

How big must be a heart that will not break?

Photo by Jill Higbee

Illustrated by Michal Diane Luch