From Tending (Aldrich Press, 2013)
A stone deep in earth’s embrace
clangs against my hoe
as I pry it from soil and roots.
If we still talked every day I’d describe it to you,
how it’s warmer than the air
with welcome heft, like a puppy or a baby,
and nearly round though I see a jagged edge
opening to inner layers, gray streaked with blue.
Loss always reveals more.
But you’re gone and clouds pass.
I still see creatures in them as you so often showed me.
Sidewalks ice over, then thaw without your
concern. I kneel in the garden, chop onions for dinner,
drive to the library, work and laugh and keep up with family
feeling the space you held
as generations have always done.
My sister and I page through boxes of fragile letters
reading passages aloud. This is my precious son Allister
who will be six years old this spring, God willing.
The resolute voice left to us in perfect cursive
holds time. We know her son stands still as she fastens
his collar, that he likes to scatter crumbs
for the birds, and when consumption takes him
she saves a lock of his hair pressed in a favorite book.
Here, 100 years later, we shudder in sorrow.
My dreams are like meals, leaving stories
that keep me fed these waking hours.
If I could I’d describe this dream to you.
You are there, dark-haired and vibrant
at a festive table, seated with our ancestors.
Everyone is talking with merriment
unknown here among the stones.
From here it looks like a celebration.
