SILENCE GATHERING IN BLUE AIR

What the heart remembers after years of absence:

a certain look in an old photo,

eyes brimming with dare and longing,

or the deep undercurrents of his voice

months later on a phone message never erased,

or mid-day on Palm Sunday along College Street

hand-in-hand on a crowded sidewalk after the second chemo,

but what of this morning light in the long grass,

the soft trill of swallows, the gleam in the dark pond,

a solitary dragonfly stalking the garden

and what of the nights

silence gathering in blue air

a faint mist over the ride of trees,

cinders glowing in the dark room.

It’s taken eight years to learn

that death is not a failure

nor is it a bad dream we enter

when this world is lost to us.

We return to the beginning again,

where nothing matters but the heart

that continues its wild beat

searching for the skull of its birth,

wanting nothing but light.