If I could show you the picture of us last summer
hugging on a patio at our mutual birthday dinner

you would all say how beautiful she was.
We were drunk in that photo

oh so loaded

(Four of us the usual suspects had gone out and sat on a patio
to celebrate 47. The waiter
one we had had before told us we looked like movie stars and gave us I don't know.
Maybe two or three free bottles of wine.
To keep us there glittering and laughing too loud for the benefit of others.)

She shone that night. Nails done red, hair done.
And later walking home, she would not let me ride
my bike until I had proved to her I could walk a straight line.)

shameful behaviour.

I do not know what to do with my feelings sometimes.

I cannot go to my Bear because he is so new to me and
I hesitate to go to the rest of us

us who she left behind because we are all so profoundly steeped in our own

grief.

It sweeps over me sometimes.
Memories of her.
Good god woman.
may you be well wherever you are.

(Hey)

I have been off for a time
unpacking boxes and looking out at new vistas.

from my balcony
and to the north
I see cranes and construction and love

to the south
I see my past, my job
and my dogs new home

I am on the flight path of geese
and twice they have flown close outside my window
and from my downy bed I see them
cutting a diagonal across the sky.

Putting the key down on the kitchen counter of my former home
(they call it the matrimonial home)
was anticlimactic
I was too busy to absorb the content
of what it meant

I have rare time to sit and reflect on
the monument of loss that has been the past year
but tied in
(mixed)
like a potion
is light as well

with all dark comes an equal share of light.

(are you running with the dogs on the beach wind in your hair waves crashing in your ears? Are you all a black and white photograph as I remember us there? I miss you. Your pillows which I took carry a faint musk of you and I curl up into them these past few nights like your cat with a familiar blanket being carried to his new home.)

I hear your voice you know. cellular. In me and of me for so long.

But I selfishly weary of this loss, and I wonder if you are free.
Are you leaning on your mothers shoulder, looking out at the waves finding beauty in such dark power only an ocean can bring. That beach. It went on forever. I wander it with you now.

I am full of questions, and I am so lonely without you.
I miss you in the smallest of places.

My heart beats out a loss in time with your waves.
And the dogs, they run in slow motion.

Is it in the nature of us
us animals, hairless apes, to simply seek love

To find that safe nest where we can snuffle
and turn five times round
and settle down heavily
with a groan and a sigh and say
I have found this place

she sent me, my friend, who I called sister who died a short time ago, she sent me a poem.
And I not one really for poetry
and these days especially distracted
even magazines provide a challenge for my concentration
only paid it attention at her insistence.

she sent it to me for these lines
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

she was worried, rightfully, that I was being too hard on myself during my separation.

And I look back now with a choke
and wonder could she not have read them as well?
Could she not have just been a dumb animal content with a place?

She came on me suddenly this morning, her loss is now becoming real
a palpable and empty hole in my life
And everywhere I look I see her
and strive to remember the smell of her hair

The process of packing up my life after many years to move
(onward and upward)

is allowing me to unpack
what has been hidden for so long.

I have been without words for a long time lately

Her death
taking the breath out of me
my sister
not of blood but of history
I cannot write any more about you
I cannot find the sadness for you in me
(and that is frightening)

but in the face of that sorrow a body of water rushes by
splitting my reflection a million times over
and I look up
and the bear is there again
slowing me down
growling at me to
breathe

Tonight packing, I unearth a box
a spiral tail of pins, canvas and salt
stupidly packed away so the salt
rotted the fabric
brown

more beautiful now
than when it was first made.

Process.

it has had its life span

I am salt
I am water
I am tears and blood and bone

the wear making me more beautiful than when I was first made.

If the moon exploded would it look like this?

Sometimes the universe, she who I have at times called a bitch chooses a kind of benevolence and lays something in the path.

subtle
(look at this she whispers)

all one has to do is pick it up and not be afraid.
(the only thing I fear is my heart I whisper back)

silly girl she says
drifting away on a wind
pay attention

Tonight is a full moon night
full of whispers and suggestions

I look down at my cupped hands where she has placed something
unexpected
unsought

but given anyhow

and I smile down
and into
the possibility and hope of her gift.

The other day
the other day
I saw a bear
i saw a bear
away up there


There is not much writing in me these says. There are many words, but not much ability to string them together in much coherence for the likes of y'all.

I.am.tired.

I am also very much awake.

The kindnesses given to me in the months that have past astound me. Today.

Just today. A co worker came and gave me a gift.

just because. we have a history her and I. we worked together in the restaurant business 20 years ago, and here I am in the same office with her.

she is protective.

and the woman, my friend who walks Knight a couple of times a week, brought me in a cinnamon bun. because.

she said, just because.

And last night. one of closest nearest and dearest. She made me a beautiful meal. And I ate enough for ten because these days I do not eat much unless it is put in front of me.

how she puts up with me.

The past week has been full of surprises.
I walk with my dog and a bear comes snuffling gently and kindly out of the woods.

surprises everywhere.