Woman In Black.

When the murmuring ceased,
and silence took command,
She stood placid,
a hymn book in her hand.
Her fingers clasped together
in prayer,
The relict restrained her grief,
her sorrow, and despair.

The sordid rains drizzled down
from the skies,
But all was still,
in the sea of tears and sighs.
Only one woman
her grief held back;
This was the relict –
the Woman in Black.

She clung to her nerves,
sighing between each breath;
Her life was wrecked
on the reef of Death.
She walked away
without looking back:
Neither wind nor rain
perturbed the Woman in Black.

Aslan Aswan, in 1964.