Breath & Shadow
Winter 2023 - Vol. 20, Issue 1
"The Burden"
written by
Susan M. Silver
When a rare winter moon
Pushes through the night clouds
To present its plush peach self in full,
When the blooming spring daisy field beseeches me
To take a gentle roll through its ranks,
When an iridescent harmony sounds,
Charging through summer’s air like unfamiliar lightning,
I remember
That you long ago slipped away,
And that these earth-bound beauties
Are no longer
Mine to share with you.
Most cruel, forcing me
To bear alone the burden of excruciating loveliness
Without your singular expression
Of the nature of things,
The sole option
Straining to hear
Your words in their enlightened you-ness
Susan M. Silver is a New York City-based freelance writer with credits in People magazine, Us Weekly, the New York Daily News, and The Saturday Evening Post. In addition to Breath and Shadow, her fiction has appeared in Wordgathering, Lifestyles magazine and Short Stuff.