Threads

Messengers on the horizon
Dark birds winging towards us
Tell of tragic events that hit
The island now so old
Built on the edge and
Shifting plates beneath the sea.

These images hit
First hand pictures
Death and destruction on
Screens of every description
All across this earthen home
We have been born
To share.

Poets, writers take up their craft
The pens and keyboards
The artists colors and sounds
Respond with aching hearts
To put into words
Expressions of our common grief
To make sense of
The suddenness of life's ending
Pieces of our flesh torn away
Felt until our own migration
Beyond the final breath we all
One day will draw.

A few days ago
Picked from a box
Filled with cast offs
I brought home
A Japanese silk kimono
A once cherished possession
Carefully kept in mothballs
Preserved for the next generation
Treasures and smells
That have now been abandoned.

Washed and hung outside
On the covered porch
It waits for spring to make it fresh
Empty in its desolate beauty
Now symbol for so many souls
Gone forth from solid form
Limp in its silken shape
With threads that bind us
Always so close at hand
Hanging silently
In mourning
Outside our winter door.