Tangle of Thorns

  The dates stare back at me From a screen And timelines  Align Clearly revealing The mosaic that previously Was loosely connected  Tiles Your grief was so fresh This fragile bomb Deep in your chest You keep mostly hidden Safe And I was expecting The easy connection And laughing eyes From years before Another layer to our growing Friendship I didn't understand Why I was excluded Why your eyes had “no trespass”  Clearly posted And I was kept at Arms length What had I done?  Why didn't you trust me?  But it wasn't me.  It was this bomb.  Bigger than both of us A new landscape You had just begun  To navigate But I persisted And persisted Tolerated Grudgeingly Tag-along Friend?  Maybe If I insisted  And now I see the dates On granite you visited My eyes are opened And empathy wells anew I am glad We persisted Because these layers Of years Bind us stronger Together Friends Family Forever

If I sleep in the recliner  Then I am not really sleeping  And if I'm not really sleeping Then there's a chance This has all been a strange dream And when I do get up You will be here Not gone Not forever It could all be A dream Like a couch nap When you are home sick from school And all the impossible  Gets jumbled up Mixed in your mind And you wake up Half certian the impossible was reality Until you hear Mom in the kitchin And the filiments of un-reality fall away And you are anchored In safety of home And family So maybe I will sleep in the chair Because then maybe I will wake up And this fever dream will fall away And I will hear you in the kitchen And you will be here. 

I am both comforted and assailed  b y new waves of grief, when following the rhythms you taught me.  My hands warming the cool dirt Grit working under my nails Seeds pressed into their hopeful beginings And I wish I could call you Share my joy of spring Joy you danced to The only dance you knew The dance of the garden Of growth and renewal It seems cruel The season of new life Being my greatest reminder of you.  Now you are dead Burried beneath The soil you loved Daffodils and crocus  Dancing above.  “Why are you crying?”  My littlest has found me crying  in our garden.  Because gardening reminds me of Grandma.  “Why do you do it?  If it makes you sad?” Because she loved it.  And I like it.  I like to grow yummy food And plant in the dirt with my babies.  Because it reminds me of you.  And how you taught me  To grow in the dirt  And how healing each plot “The garden is my therapy”  You often remarked....