Still It Comes

I have known sorrow. I have known its other name.

In the long empty hours when the night settles deep

And the dark is a weight i have learned not to name,

I return to a wound that has swallowed my sleep -

To a face i have lost, and a guttered - out flame.

Still it comes. Still it comes -

Through the hollow of night, how it drums.

What i buried will not keep.

It is here in the dark. It is deep.

I have moved through the world in the manner of grief,

I have worn the right sorrow in all the right rooms,

I have begged at the alters of hollow belief -

Yet the ache in me deepens. It festers. It blooms.

Still it comes. Still it comes -

Through the hollow of night, how it drums.

What i buried will not keep.

It is here in the dark. It is deep.

In the long empty hours when the night settles deep

And the dark is a weight i have learned not to name,

I return to a wound that has swallowed my sleep -

To a face i have lost, and a guttered - out flame.

Still it comes. Still it comes -

Through the hollow of night, how it drums.

What i buried will not keep.

It is here in the dark. It is deep.

I have moved through the world in the manner of grief,

I have worn the right sorrow in all the right rooms,

I have begged at the alters of hollows belief -

Yet the ache in me deepens. It festers. It blooms.

Still it comes. Still it comes -

Through the hollows of night, how it drums.

What i buried will not keep.

It is here in the dark. It is deep.

I return to one night - to the last of a look -

To the way that the air in the room seemed to change,

To a door left ajar, to a page in a book,

To a silence that followed, familiar and strange.

Still it comes. Still it comes -

Through the hollows of night, how it drums.

What i buried will not keep.

It is here in the dark. It is deep.

And i name it as grief - it is all i have known -

This returning, this ache, this fidelity to loss.

I have carried it carefully, carried it alone,

And i cannot explain what it is that it cost.

Still it comes. Still it comes -

Through the hollow of night, how it drums.

What i buried will not keep.

It is here. It is deep.