: meditations on melancholy

  You said melancholy, I said Chopin; a poultice 
  you could put on pain. Dark notes held by beauty 
  
  in a soft hand. Not cry-your-eyes-out, slumped 
  in blurs of despond. But clear-eyed chords; 
  
  elegiac philosophy carried on rivers of soul. 
  Comfort for the bloody business of loss, 
  
  the carnage of having what is as close to you 
  as your own limb, lopped. The nocturnes lasso 
  
  darkness with light; ever-widening stories to which 
  your tale belongs. The simple peace when pain 
  
  is consented to. Silos of silence to sink into.