Sister Poem by Lorna Billanes

Sister, today I sit by the bench outside the house
where I used to wait for the long shadow of evening.
I remember you still as you were that final summer.
You were a bird in repose. In your eyes
the ghosts of some distant past were feuding
and their cries found a voice in your songs.

Sister, you cried yourself to sleep one night in September.
Deaf to your pain, I hid away from your sadness.
My heart that afternoon was of stone.

Gray skies and somber evenings.
Your memory is of half-light, half-life, a sad song.
In your eyes the ghosts of some remembered pain were brewing
and their cries bore a hole in your soul.