Wednesday, April 26, 2017

GOOD FRIDAY (for Heidi)


Morning is a woman glistening winds of gold.
Grasses fine as silken glass whisper someone’s name.

Somewhere lanky girls are laughing in a schoolyard,
homework’s flown the coop, disappeared in a wisp
of dusty past.

Here, underneath a dome of blue, unwinds a path
of stones and sage where breezes blow more slowly.

A solo oak tree guards your ashes in a first
of many graves. Placed at the solid base
not so long ago.

Four years’ before, a day when words bore no solace,
a day of thirsting where no water flows, blackened
heart-sick hills, rock strewn acres torn from drought.

I remember how you danced and shone and shimmered
on that November day. A day shorn from normal time:

you wept and screamed and fluttered in Autumn’s trembling rain.

The day we met the oncologist--‘your life will never be
the same.’  His naming froze the moment, drenching us in diagnosis.

Here, our bewildered shards of rage pierced oak and sky and wind.
Our fear knew no border, now there was no taming.

Earth cracked open, wrenched us from the ground:
and yet, winds of gold still kiss your schoolgirl’s tangled hair,
bless your freckles sparkling in the sun and rain,
and shall forevermore.

Morning is two butterflies mating on a leaf, they’re birthing
earth and grass and a woman giving simple song,
life in silence turns a page.

(And it never was, as he’d prophesied,
your same and normal story)

everything’s replenished, bathed in Friday’s ageless light

You’re here right now I know.

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