Black Tears, Sacred Flame
for Imelda May
A quiet storm—
dressed in velvet shade—
descends,
not with thunder,
but prayer.
It falls
where the soul once knelt,
where black tears
speak gently
of what love lost
and still longs for.
Your voice—
not sung,
but summoned—
from the ache between
shadow and light.
A twilight bloom
opening
before the dawn
dares to arrive.
No lyric holds it.
No word survives it.
It stirs the silence
that burns
beneath my skin.
My heart—
a chalice,
cracked,
and wide—
fills again
with tears
I used to bury.
Each note—
a silver filament,
threading sorrow
into something
like grace.
Uncertainty—
the holy law.
Truth—
a shifting flame.
But in your melody
a ghost walks with me,
through the hallways
of my inward night.
This grief,
this beautiful ruin—
it flows
like dark honey,
bitter-sweet,
teaching me
to fall
and rise
in the same breath.
O Imelda—
your song
tastes of mystery,
of doorways left ajar
between time
and what lies beyond it.
You do not sing.
You ignite.
A flame that
whispers
my name
from within.
And in your black tears—
I find my own reflection—
a mirror,
fragile,
aching,
human.
So let your rain fall
softly.
Let your echo linger
where my pain once lived.
For there—
in that sacred hush—
black tears end.
And something unnamed
begins.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem