Catherine Munro

by

Crystal Dawn Allen

She spoke with the fresh breath of snow.

Crickets chirping, crows mourning. Morning.

"He was not a good man," she said, "not even in his heart,
but he was a lonely man."

I should say goodbye.

There was frost melting on the cracked stone cross,
on the rusting iron cross,
on the rotten wood cross,
on the hanging metal cross.
At the top of the hill stood a small white cross
bearing nothing but the name "Catherine Munro".

Catherine, you stand so small
but from where I stand you are all I see.
While she waits by the river for the light to reach it
I wait for her, but it's you who keeps me.

Catherine. There are no dates
because life is eternal and undefined.
The paint flakes and the wood splits.
Your name disappears, the way you might have

slipped from this world small pieces at a time without knowing,
the way trees lose their leaves on the calmest days

quietly

under a weatherless blue sky as birds are singing

Suddenly I stagger from the loss of you, strange woman
whom I never knew.
Is it that I never knew you,
or that I feel I know you now?
No, it's not
your absence that I'm reeling from-
it's the loss of who I was
just before this moment, back when
the morning was crisp and alive,
not vanishing
as the shadows now slink back into the headstones.

She comes up the path and startles me.
She mentions in cold puffs that she saw something that caught her eye,
but I dare not see it.
Like a long stick propped against a low branch,
or a footprint off the main walk,
I dare to believe
it was you: she knows.

"He was not a good man," she says,
"I'm ready to go."

NEXT?
Why don't you look at Lines on a visit to Port Fairy
by: Francis Duggan
from: Wonthaggi, Victoria, Australia

To visit all of Crystal Dawn Allen's poems, click HERE

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