Parched back into earth,
They return, the ancestors,
We all return in time,
After our sliver of shining light
Flickers and we go to stars.
I step outside to sniff the scent
Of linden, perfuming a thirsty
Landscape; it comforts me and
In the velvet night I can't see
The brown, once-green stretch now lit
By fireflies out towards the pond,
It's very low.
But linden never fails to arrive with
Its reminder that for a few short weeks,
No matter what,
I will be transported by its heady smell,
Balance in a world sometimes careening,
A few short weeks of balance
And perfection.
In the nighttime sky the moon hangs
Sceptered, and there's a hint of
Rain. Far across the rolling
Western miles,
My friend, dear of my teenaged heart,
Pinches herself and
Wonders how it can be
That this is the eve of her
Seventieth birthday.
It doesn't do that I tell her
That she's beautiful
And wise, that her gifts enrich
Each soul whose path she crosses,
And she's struggling a little, though
I know she will arrive at her resolve and
Bloom into new glory
In her own sweet time, just
As linden's gifts reappear and remind
That while roots go earth-bound deep,
When seen through branches redolent of
Lime, berry and ambrosia,
The sky glows ravishing anew.
I wonder when we start returning,
And when the body, rich and pulsing,
Flesh and blood, fears and dreams
Starts to turn to face a brighter light?
For some of us, we've decades left;
I think my wondrous friend
Has decades left, and
No matter what, I am joyful for her,
Grateful for long years,
Our long connection.
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