Villanelle: Remembering Not to Call

Villanelle: Remembering Not to Call by Michael R. Burch (a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch) The hardest thing of all, after telling her everything, is remembering not to call. Now the phone hanging on the wall will never announce her ring: the hardest thing of all for children, however tall. And the hardest thing this spring will be remembering not to call the one who was everything. That the songbirds will nevermore sing is the hardest thing of all for those who once listened, in thrall, and welcomed the message they bring, since they won’t remember to call. And the hardest thing this fall will be a number with no one to ring. No, the hardest thing of all is remembering not to call. She is brighter than dawn by Michael R. Burch for Beth There’s a light about her like the moon through a mist: a bright incandescence with which she is blessed and my heart to her light like the tide now is pulled . . . she is fair, O, and bright like the moon silver-veiled. There’s a fire within her like the sun’s leaping forth to lap up the darkness of night from earth's hearth and my eyes to her flame like the sphingid’s are drawn till my heart is consumed. She is brighter than dawn. The sphingid gets its name from the Sphinx and is called the sphinx moth. The Strangest Rain by Michael R. Burch “I ... am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur—and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves ...”—Emily Dickinson “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”—Emily Dickinson The strangest rain, a few bright sluggish drops, unsure if they should fall, run through with sun, came tumbling down and touched me, one by one, too few to animate the shriveled crops of nearby farmers (though their daughters might feel each cool splash, a-shiver with delight). I thought again of Emily Dickinson, who felt the tingle down her spine, inspired to lifting hairs, to nerves’ electric song of passion for a thing so deep-desired the heart and gut agree, and so must tremble as all the neurons of the brain assemble to whisper: This is love, but what is love? Wrens darting rainbows, laughter high above. limping to the grave under the sentence of death, should i praise ur LORD? think i’ll save my breath! –michael r. burch Keywords/Tags: villanelle, mourning, mother, son, phone, call, ring, children, death, funeral, elegy, eulogy, absence