Chinese Lantern
for Nora
If I’m to launch my sky lantern tonight,
you might consider
why I’ve waited all these years
to send it heavenwards, transmitting
the heartfelt message:
‘I still love you,’ which I should’ve shared
a lifetime ago, in time for our children
to have been born,
instead of setting fires in hearths
and gardens you would never see.
Now paper and flame
glow irredescant in the growing gloom
like some lighted holy manger moving
imperceptibly,
steadily towards the steadfast horizon.