Outlive the Hand

In death she spoke of waiting

Her final days were long

These fields have changed since last she wept

Before the silent throng

She sits where childhood memories lie

Above, beside, within them

The carvings have outlived the hand

Which bled to first begin them

As features of the landscape merge

The oldest trees are falling

Awareness sweeps the view aside

She stares as if recalling

Seen first beyond the canopy

They soon had reached the borders

The clouds infused with burning breath

Arrived from coldest corners

The windswept valley hastens now

As dying words are uttered

From lips of earth and sapling's strain

Like leaves, her last thoughts fluttered

Again it darkens overhead

The knowledge of it stills me

And when the water starts to fall

Preserve the drop that kills me