For the Ones Left Behind — Poem by Alice Saga

for the ones left behind · · · they were calling for her. in the dark hours before the birds. a sound i had never heard before — not song, not cry, but something older. they do not have our words. they do not have our thoughts that build small rooms around the grief and call it understanding. they only have the field and the place where she was and the place where she is not. they came back to the road. they stood where she had sat. they called and called and called. i lay in the dark and listened. i could not help them. i could not say she was not afraid, that i sat with her, that i blinked slowly the way my cat taught me. they would not have understood. and still — they knew. they knew the field was wrong. they knew the morning was missing something. animals do not build cathedrals for their dead. they do not write poems. they do not light candles or say her name three times into the april air. they return to the place. they call. they wait. they leave. they come back. and that is the purest prayer i have ever heard. · · · for alva ljuva dagny's family — the ones who came back to the road and called into the dawn for a body that would not answer. i heard you. i will carry your voices the way i carry her eyes. for a long, long time. · · · Alice Saga Unneröd, 8 April 2026