The Perfect Joy of Summer Squash (Poem)

how can I not remember you? how can I forget?

at the market you would gently pick through summer squash

to find the ones that were just the color of the sun

and hold a blueberry to the sky before tasting it for sweetness,

then at home, you would spread all we bought in riotous display

and circle it talking aloud to yourself of the delicious possibilites.

sometimes when we cooked, you’d dance around the kitchen

and grab my hands to pull me in until I joined you.

you said I was too serious always and your job was to make me laugh.

oh love, long ago and too soon gone love, you did that so well

that still I remember your lessons and the beauty of your smile.

did I hold you enough? no, never enough, yet I tried to the very end.

though you slipped away to wander the unknown fields of death,

you remain with me in unexpected ways, forever my abiding joy;

forever my happiness; forever my heart.