we recently lost a friend to cancer, a death that prompted a number of close-to-the-bone poems for me. some so close that I don’t feel like I can share them without causing pain to her family. perhaps this, about a dinner we shared with her husband along the way, might touch on it without going too far…
he should get out some, she said, but how?
out of what? into what? knowing as we do
that her disease
is consuming their lives together.
that she’s at home slowly dying
while we sit here, sharing a meal.
we spend the evening speaking of birds
of the intelligence of crows.
of how she would watch the eagles
over the lake hunting the ducks.
of how she always sided with the ducks
though they rarely survived the attack.
of how birdsong at morning
differs profoundly from the songs of evening.
of how darkness seems to swoop down
and swallow the final notes.
of how in the deepest dark of night
countless birds are said to pass overhead
through the highest of heavens,
following the ancient ways north, and then south
and then north again. of how this migration
of souls passes completely unseen.
of how, in the end, there is so very much
that each of us must ultimately take on faith.
© 2018 jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com
all afternoon
