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.
