In Mourning – a sonnet

I am writing a long sequence of sonnets that will see publication in 2023. I thought it might be fun to share some of them in advance.

A sonnet is included below, along with an audio recording of me reading it.

In Mourning

There used to be a sparkle in your eye
fired by a vigorous joust with life.
And then I watched it die,
an unwilling witness as you lost your wife,
you so desperate to weep
yet inexplicably dry-eyed at being left behind.

She would have told you what to do: keep
looking to the future, your mind
alive, remorselessly focussed on how to spend
your time and not waste it
as she feared she had in the end.

You say I cannot understand it,
how heavily it sits,
not death itself but the emptiness it commits.