Perhaps it’s grief and sorrow wrapped around your frame,
I do not know just how — yet feel it all the same.
I wish that I were closer, so you’d let me see,
And trust me with the burden that has captured thee.

Such longing may seem strange, perhaps it truly may,
Yet still it walks beside me every passing day.
I want to warm your spirit, shelter you from pain,
And know the hidden places where your wounds remain.

I watch, and all the images begin to fade away,
They slip like grains of sand through open hands and stray.
And you, and you, and you are vanishing from view,
Not even dreams are left to carry traces of you.

Elisa Ryschkow