May 28, 2013

• Remembering Her

  You don't often see a man like that,
  dressed in a suit, shirt and tie
  his shoes as neat as he could manage.
  using two canes to hold himself up,
  under a tree you know he planted
  just for her.

  He is past 85,
  maybe pushing 90,
  and he came without flowers
  to see his lost girl,
  sleeping a long time under the stone,
  the moss hinting at a decade passage.

  But he came to talk,
  and he did not stop nor stammer
  when I ventured near,
  and for him, she wasn't gone---
  just somewhere else,
  so speech was appropriate
  to the rhododendron and vines.

  I did not mean to eavesdrop,
  and didn't hear it all,
  but when it got too hard to stand,
  he touched one hand to the stone,
  said "I have to go now honey."
  and held the canes to make his way.

  Memorial Day,
  spent remembering that love
  isn't the part of us
  that ever dies,
  Just ask the man
  who made his slow way
  back to a car,
  after a time he spent
  not dwelling on who she was,
  but who she still is, in his heart.

  • 5:32 am
  • 3 Comments