Supper?

Oh mouse, Oh mouse,
Oh tiny shadow-dweller of my house,
What death is thine,
What, sings the bluebottle its mournful song?
What of thy kin?
The million hordes,
Scratching a dirge 'neath the skirting boards.
A wake needs food,
Cheese perhaps?
On a little table?
Watch out, it...
Snaps.

I.

Cool liquid, pitch.
Bright, wet.

Holding the summer stars
On its surface.
Catching them
In its darkness

And giving them names.

Aftermath

We live in a world of ghosts.
An aftermath.
The Age of Mammals. Great.
We cannot see past the "ordinary" to what was lost.
We look at trees whose sharp and bitter leaves
Avoid the meal they will never be,
And branches that grow high to escape
Mouths that will never reach for them.
We listen to a dawn chorus that has lost its baritones.
I miss those ones I've never heard.
And wonder how it would have been
To look into the eyes of Troödon,
Or out of them.

Grief

Grief is not about sad words,
Or eyes filled with tears,
But about empty places
That will never be filled again.
It throws up words, like white wood
Left by the sea on lonely sand;
Bones, cast upon the pale clay of the soul;
Struck from me like sparks from stone,
Falling unheard into darkness.
A wondrous fire has gone out,
and, all understanding lost,
I gaze into the ashes, cheeks unwet,
Unseeing; soul waiting for the dam-burst.