Carrying Charlotte
 
The sun is on the other side of the world.
It’s November now, and the bare trees
have lost all hope of resurrection.
The stars are rotating quietly through the heavens,
burning with an intense cold that chills the bone.
 
I remember carrying you to the car in my black clothes,
after the rabbi’s speech about the Shamash candle:
you were light as a candle in my Christian hands.
I remember the grey sky of November at your cemetery,
the earth we scattered on your open grave.
 
In the space between the stars,
there is no margin of error, no human scale.
Life rebels against the order of things.
It’s night now, Charlotte, and you are dreaming –
dreaming as we all do, alone.

John Isbell

 
If you have any thoughts about this poem,  John Isbell would be pleased to hear them