Gone From the Boat, Far From the Ocean 2 (version 1)

Autumn ducked into the year,
Two days early, quickly,
cold, hard winds:

Just the way you left us
So unlike what I thought you to be,
knew you to be; knew of you

Silent, bristling stranger, impatient
with your familiar face
and disapproving glare
when I spoke,
each time, the same

This chill in the air, these winds
out of nowhere, anticipated
but, nonetheless, unexpected
surprising in their deftness,
a momentary utterance

of impending cold
inevitable barrenness
coming toward us
as you recede,
your body gone

Left like a cracked eggshell:
Your death
an invisible birth

We each stand incredulous,
the opposite of joyousness,
the room buzzing in sterility

Something missing, someone--
the added element, absence--
like this singular dark day

Subtracting itself from a week of
golden Indian summer,
this autumn day,
trees suddenly, inarguably deciduous

The lack of light,
reduction to shadows,
of shadows,
of nuance

Intangible, impersonal,
so quickly occurring
In absentia, continuum
of inevitable changes:
the addition of subtraction