Sadness

It’s always there

Sadness

Waiting 

in the psalm of morning

in the bustle of the afternoon

in the heavy heart of evening

like the soldiers 

in the trenches of Somme

eavesdropping on no man’s land

gripping their rifles 

like nursery blankets

silently reciting the Lord’s Prayer. 

It lives beneath the speckled earth 

in the rumble of dreams 

in the prelude of rain

in the epitaph of goodbye

in the epilogue of regret

And it’s engraved in the faces 

of the long forgotten

who live in the exile of pictures

behind the longhand of fragile boxes

that was written in the calligraphy of my mom

who knew 

as a tortured child

that she had to warn me

of what lay ahead.