Death and Rebirth

Side by Side

Let me see who you are
Death
let me look you in the face
please do not squint
I want to see the color
of your eyes

Come closer
there is a bench we can share
side by side
I can feel the sun on my back
with you next to me
I am unafraid

Smell the dew
on the green grass
it too lingers
enjoying the morning
birdsong
and warming air

This graveyard
is so peaceful
as clouds ease by
it’s comforting to know
the sky is a favored
guest here

Someone planned ahead
Death
this is a nice stone bench
for us to sit awhile
in stillness
the lichen know it well

Death –
forget your shadow
and come walk with me
side by side
friends now
always look me in the eye

ag ~ 2012

And yet

I cry
a thousand tears
in anguish
that you are dying
truthfully that you are leaving me behind

I lament your passage
when we have so much more to share
and yet does it really matter
would I not weep a thousand more
many more years from now

would they not
still fall in sobs of grief
just the same
I believe so and yet
and yet…

ag ~ 2012

Healing Grace

is an angel

posing as a great-grandmother to-be

cheerfully waiting on a wooden bench

despite having a broken hip

outside a local pizza parlor

she is an artist with loopy earrings

that dangle Crayola crayon colors

her sun sign is Cancer

and she roots for the Mets

Healing Grace opened a school

in the Brookdale Reform Church

and charges only eight dollars

for classes to paint but more so

to color create healthy self-esteem

she wears a crescent moon for a smile

and has twinkling stars in her eyes

offers her hand in friendship

and compliments everyone’s name

it’s easy to overlook this gentle dame

sitting on a park bench or the downtown bus

however healing grace won’t let you go without a kind word first

ag ~ 2012

for Pat Hill