You are an echo
A gentle whisper that comes back to me
When I stand on the edge of a cliff
And scream into the darkness

You don’t try to yell back
Or overpower my emotions
You are soft in your response
Not trying to tell me what to do

It’s more like you are just letting me know
You are there
You are listening
You care

You are an echo
That keeps me from feeling alone

I used to walk a mile or more
through hot summer woods and boggy marsh
to fish beaver ponds that had no shore
and never thought the price too harsh

At work I'd walk the tops of walls
ten feet tall, four inches wide
while building rooms, closets and halls
and never sway from side to side

This lame old dude even ran track
a lean and thin fleet athlete
even pole vaulted onto a cushioned sack
of energy I was replete

there is a natural succession
to the way we breathe,
as if the trees could sweep the ground
of our buried
instead my dead sits
on closet shelves,
brown wrapped packages
with labels –

but grandpa got a pine box,
six by four confines
sealed
as if we’d really want to see a fragment
of bone and discuss which piece
remained dense,
there was this ironic fascination
with death,
google tells me
what I will die of all the time

if i press my head on a pile of sand
i can hear the ants
the waking cherry blossoms
mother painting the fences three shades
of pink

this canvas i'm admiring
is last year's clouds
the fat rumbling of late march and thursday
the glass wind chime dangling
from her fingers

when i'm tired of courting sunsets
i think of father
the summer gone fields
mother uprooting vines and soaking sorrow
with patience