Do you remember Rose?

Love asked me

 

I dropped to my knees

My tears rivalled the sea

My tears on the sand

 

The immeasurable sky

Heard my cry

The immeasurable land

Collected my tears on the sand

 

Do you remember Rose?

Love insisted

 

I didn’t answer

Instead, pain did it for me

 

Yes, pain said, he remembers her

He does

 

I sighed

 

Up there in the immensity

High in its solitude

A full moon rose and the sea rose

And erased Rose

Her name written on the sand

 

I wrote it, her name

I wrote Rose’s name on the sand

 

To do it, I used a naked branch

A naked branch where a nest once perched

I used it to write her name on the sand

 

How long, oh, how long was it

How long was it that I wrote it

Rose’s name on the sand?

 

How long, oh, how long was it

That the tide over her name plied?

 

 

Even today, love asks

Do you remember her?

 

There is no malice in this question

I know

I feel there is no malice in this question

 

I wanted to see her name Rose

Written on the sand

I wanted to see Rose, but the sea rose

 

Ah, the moon rose and her name Rose

Was never there when the sea rose

 

My tears rival the sea

My tears on the sand

 

Do you remember her?

Loves insists

 

I don’t answer

Instead, pain does it for me

 

Yes, pain said, he still remembers her

He does

 

A wound opens in my chest

 

Alas, I’m crying

 

What questions love hurts me with

There, where it hurts me the most, in my heart?

 

What answers pain afflicts me with

There, where it pains me the most, in my soul?