Helen

1: 

At the end, she'd cut her own hair,
scry the snipped, dropped-free letters,
and then scatter them with a toe.
"It's not there, don't worry."

2: 

"Mountains alone stay dumb to me,"
she'd tell me from her stare. Layer 
after layer, deep into fog distance,
the curves were torn-out pages.

3:

Our southern nights were "illegible".
The pen stayed in her hand,
but made no more cormorant dives
to shatter the white. She'd been stilled.

4: After

I'd read the old quarry walls where ivy
had drunk calcite from split limestone:
then died and dropped free. Ghost strophes.

They told me nothing in every language.

Helen

1: 

At the end, she'd cut her own hair,
scry the snipped, dropped-free letters,
and then scatter them with a toe.
"It's not there, don't worry."

2: 

"Mountains alone stay dumb to me,"
she'd tell me from her stare. Layer 
after layer, deep into fog distance,
the curves were torn-out pages.

3:

Our southern nights were "illegible".
The pen stayed in her hand,
but made no more cormorant dives
to shatter the white. She'd been stilled.

4: After

I'd read the old quarry walls where ivy
had drunk calcite from split limestone:
then died and dropped free. Ghost strophes.

They told me nothing in every language.

Helen

1: 

At the end, she'd cut her own hair,
scry the snipped, dropped-free letters,
and then scatter them with a toe.
"It's not there, don't worry."

2: 

"Mountains alone stay dumb to me,"
she'd tell me from her stare. Layer 
after layer, deep into fog distance,
the curves were torn-out pages.

3:

Our southern nights were "illegible".
The pen stayed in her hand,
but made no more cormorant dives
to shatter the white. She'd been stilled.

4: After

I'd read the old quarry walls where ivy
had drunk calcite from split limestone:
then died and dropped free. Ghost strophes.

They told me nothing in every language.