16

It’s the hour.
Sleep is elusive as I watch the minutes roll by, seeing again in my mind’s eye the last second you breathed
The years in between count for days in this moment
Or maybe weeks. But surely it hasn’t been a lifetime (short as it may be) since I last saw you.

When the last grain of sand drops to its heap I’ll forget you
The dead cannot mourn or weep but they should not be forgotten.
I won’t turn away from the memory tonight.

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word
Daddy’s gone away now, so take away the hurt
If the sorrow never leaves you, please remember me -
I’ll break apart the hourglass if you’ll just remember me.

I should tell you that your grandson is past my waist and looks me deep in my eyes when he asks of you.
He dreams of saving the world already - seems to be a family failing -
But for now it’s with ninja swords and superpowers.
Soon I am sure we will catch him one day, staring into the deep, and then we will know he has begun his quest to dream.

For now I’ll enjoy the milk moustaches and chocolate stains on his shirt
And the purple marker he somehow got behind his ear.
Forgive me if mine is not a somber wake. I’m not keeping vigil for you, you see.
I’m awake for me.

iron

i thought i would be perfect before i found you.

in my head, it would all be laid out in front of me and i would never look back. i would be calm and collected and the temper that had burned within me would be stilled. there would be no harsh words flung from its flames.

but then fire met fire and iron met iron. you were cold when you were alone just like i was. the facade rarely gave way and we both thought we were opaque.

i remember the night you first saw me. it was dark in the room and the moonlight shone in and i hid my face from you while i cried because i hated to cry.

there have been years of words and nights with tears. i never wanted to grieve but you fought me for it, and i met you with everything you threw. you dared me to fight back and i remembered that life had not killed me yet and i always come back from a fall. i showed you that fighting was so close to dancing and you learned to pull your punches when i lost control.

that's how it was.

i'll never beat you, and we'll never give in. but as we mend the wounds the day comes and we remember why we were made to fight, why we never surrender. i'll stand with my back to yours and i'll never fear what's behind me again.

i can see us and the fires are cooling though we still try to be opaque. we will keep trading strength for strength until we are old and gray - then the temper will be tamed and i won't be afraid to weep. you'll still hold me at night and we'll whisper our dreams as we watch each other sleep.

slowly we trade the fight for the dance. the perfect is beginning to look shallow as lines form and gray begins in your beard. i am young and old. you are old and young. when our bones rust i will still laugh when no one knows why and you will still tell me horrible jokes.

and the sharp iron will lay cool by the fire.

sing, sang, sung

the rain on the plain ground in the plain town grows no trees, for plain grows nothing. the water just floods and washes away as there's nowhere to seep in hard clay.

the oddity of a seed ripping itself open to display its soul to the earth and then grow a tree came from a need to be free, to reach past the soil to the sky, and so the very small things become shelter and shade.

the breaking inside me will wound me, but i will try to reach for the sun and stretch out my branches and soak up the water in the earth and grow leaves till i die.