At the grave of Anastasia Baluk – Cross Stone

Anastasia
and the sad snow falling

a toiling sky
and a long white line of hills

a distant birthplace
short span and early dying

pain from what heaven
sorrowed your slope of life?

Through valley’s throat
run double veins of water

feverish river
somnolent canal

- the vein of the metal rail
and the trundling roadway

- blood-streams of human needs
- of human growth.

Cell touches cell
in poignant spasmed loving

cells split and flourish
filling the warming womb

limbs open out
with fingers – flexing – twitching

a body grows
and a tiny mind awakes.

Thirty-three years
- dates only tell of happenings

those limbs endured
that spirit underwent;

what was the tale
and what the final chapter

that led to this skull in the earth
and the white snow falling?