Incomplete

In the transition from womb to light,
in the pain
of lungs seared by alien air
a moment of perfect clarity
stripped away.
Somehow, our flesh survives its separation from the source.
But from that instant, we grieve.

Lullabies teach the language of need. Greedy
mouths gulp, choke on milk that spurts warm from the breast.
Each mother and child
feeds a different hunger.

Loss follows us
through raw towns that we believe and die in;
it survives 
even when carved words blur and weeds
smother the lilac bush we planted in remembrance.

I reach across
the divide of dreams to find you.
We cannot mend what was torn,
but we try to sand the ragged edges clean.

 ("through raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives" , from WH Auden's In Memory of WB Yeats