Loss

In the past week, my life has been touched by two deaths. The first was a 93 year old woman who had lived a long, beautiful life, as attested to by her six children. The second was a 57 year old man whose body had been ravaged by cancer and whose children are the same ages as mine. We’ve all felt the loss of loved ones. If we’re lucky, we hold onto their smiles in photographs. If we’re blessed, we hold onto their smiles in our mind’s eye. These recent losses prompted this poem:

Your smile is a bird
perched on the porch railing
peering in my window —
our eyes meet
outside of time
and then it flies
perhaps to where
it most belongs
and I am left
standing
still.