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.

not a stranger

someone whose days I do not know

journeying to another shore

my heart breaks with this knowledge

so should yours though you do not see

her smile filling her eyes

her face mapped by life still being lived

let it touch you nonetheless

this is how we love each other

our hearts fractured by beautiful sadness

our hearts broken open

(for Beryl)

we lucky ones never fought in war

but we all love some who have

war that people argue over

tell stories about or refuse to discuss at all

war that took them away and sent them back

kept part of them in some far away place

war that made strangers of their hearts

sent their eyes into a distant gaze

war that continues to wreck them

wrecks us all as we try and fail

knowing this we decide again and again

that we will fight wars and

fighters will come home or not

in the end none escape

we cannot seem to learn

I was young once never young enough

to call myself a flower

dance barefoot in the grass

my lover wove garlands of clover

tossed them at my head

I threw them back at her laughed

within a year she was dead

I imagined I would follow

yet now here I am

picking clover on the hillside

missing her still

the air burns bright with ghosts ablaze

shining with incandescent need

frantic hands snatch words from speech

maws agape in desperate hunger

they feed and feed and feed

in such a space and time as this

we cannot talk

we cannot hear

they ignore tears limning our faces

we can see each other grieve

let us give comfort

let us give kindness

feed starving spirits these

together we’ll sweep up their ashes

to keep as reminder, a holy relic

those had weight once

determined we slung them across our backs

inspired we cradled them near our hearts

older now we’re burdened by the stones in our pockets

those things we pick up on the way

to give them to someone put them somewhere

use them for something we never remember

still we grab more and more

over the years it becomes too much

we shrug off the heavy hopes

those discare the rocks we choose

they break into pieces with a thud

some end up in our pockets

some shake the building

once I thought these stories important

wrapped them around me

dazzling jewels a means to hide

now I walk more in silence

trailing memories from my fingers

dry leaves of yesterday turning to dust

soon I will be gone