When he left

We left, too.

Floating above our bodies

The whole of the world dropped far beneath our feet,

And all we could do was look down.

 

From here, he is the life we can no longer see;

 

He is the one bent blade in the sweeping green of earth,

He is the sap in the tree

The brine in the sea

The moss beneath the stone.

 

And as we fall to our knees

And back to our bones,

He is the marrow, he is the stone.

He is the whole new world, rearranged before our eyes.

 

From here, he is everywhere;

 

He is the clover in the greenest heart of summer,

He is the twilight blue

The meadow rue

The blackberry holding the stars.

 

He is the plum of the night

The grape of the vine

The pruning of the day.

 

He is the wealth and the mystery

The curious dignity

The aubergine carpet of thyme.

 

From here, he is the violet bruise on our gathered hearts;

 

Here to remind us that when he left,

All the purple asters stayed.

 

The way the cherry tree weeps is round with grace

Backlit with green and
Draped across the sidewalk –
The neighbors walk their dogs lightly
Beneath an ordinary arbor.

Others pause with reverence
Under its dappled nod and curve –
Hushing leashes, stilling time,
Grateful for the waking of routine.

But when she called to say her son just died
The scrape and scream tore the wind apart —
The branches just a
violent lash to the living.

Bent limbs laid too low
The neighbors step their dogs around and down
In measured arches past the crawlway.

Pink, the blossoms
New, the buds
Round, the way

Wailing,
Before the coming of the grace.

Don’t be afraid of the way things really are

Look them right in the eye

The way you did when you first fell in love;

In June, when it was easy to do.

 

Look the way you would the sky from the sand,

the fleeting green from the roadside,

The oncoming storm unfurling shadows

Across heavens and hills.

 

Across your view arrives the unexpected —

Here, where you never thought it could happen;

Sooner, then you ever thought it would.

 

When you wake to an August day

So humid it stills the sea,

When summer is stolen from the very air,

 

Breathe anyway.

There are lilies waiting for you

To notice something new.