Death of a Sculptor Mourned From Afar

She started at sixty,
no idea why, only that she discovered
in her house, its retted walls, windows,
a new purpose for cement and glass.

She undid them into owls,
red-shag wings, eyes dislodged electric bulbs.
On clear nights, South African nights,
she joined their roost clutching mice,
slugged rosewater from Persian poems.

On bad days she cooled her knuckles
on bottles bricked into domes.
Her stomach closed, hard as wood knot;
she died with light turning aimless,
a rampant crash of shovels,
the gate of night, my Ohio nights,
crashed by crows. 

© Christian Simon