Do the dead love the living
as much as we love the dead?
Is there a shutter we can open
to find them?
Perhaps we should sing to each other,
lullabies to help us sleep
and help them.
Put a flower on the table.
I think the dead can read our minds.
They are not strangers.
They are those who made life
mean everything to us.
But we forget and lose track.
Then one day they listen to our thoughts
and hear nothing.
They have died in us.
Do they go to some lonely shore
and call to the wind, leaving messages
then recede,
only coming when we are asleep?
To stand in our rooms watching us,
full of tears, tenderness,
and longing.