existing...

at such great heights
there is no sadness

and the words you speak
are engraved in gold

in that sky you now soar in
you are weightless
and at ease

your heart is full and heavy
with peace

your smile engulfs everyone below who now
looks up to you to remember

your laughter now moves like wind
invisible
yet moving across our faces
like the smile you bring

you are everything to everyone
and complete
just as the sun rising and setting
moving across the sky each and every day

you are everywhere at once
and perfect in every way

we will breathe you in
and be reminded of your essence

at such great heights
you are what you've always wanted to be
content
loved
believed in
and remembered..

understanding lucy...part one

7.23.10

it's been about 2 hours now
when death beckoned space in my mind
and subsequently my heart as well-

i am now understanding lucy-
the woman she was
the woman she wanted to be

and the pain that lived close to her.

you wouldn't know these things as they are
these are the sort of things that you find out only afterwards
when everything about the person who has left suddenly becomes an explanation for the way things are now-

she complimented me on the words i've chosen to share with the world-
the things that moved me made some sort of sense to her
and there is more weight in her words.


she wrote step by step
line by line
death by river mississippi
like she knew it -
i stopped reading about the demise she dreamed of
i didn't want to believe that she beckoned death with words dangling like carrots


in understanding lucy
i wish i would have paid more attention to the fire that she didn't see in herself.
her fierce humor and wit
she smiled big
and lived out loud

i've been thinking a lot about what things like this teach us
and what i am learning from faurot

who had a name that surely would have looked good on a best seller's list.


impermanence-

the temporary in everything and everyone
is the best we can hope for

and really the only thing we can hope for...

speaks to me...

heavy roads i've travelled
making my way back to the past
trying to bring my present with me

an introduction of the two once again

i end up tongue tied emotionally -
things stop moving up and making sense

i react but not to the people in front of me
but to the things that i remember in the familiar spaces they occupy

a box of ashes is the first i see of my uncle
since i heard of his strange passing
there were no goodbyes
just a box with a sticker that proved that he existed..

i lifted it to see what a man of his place and predicament weighed

heavy...

i turned to see a man, my father, aging, and a a grandfather who is half of what he used to be
and when i looked for grandmother
she was not there
anymore

i haven't felt her presence there since she moved on or 'checked out' as grampa wrote
in the little yellow address book that held history more accurately then all of our minds collectively-
deaths,
births,
marriages
and social security numbers of the grandkids..

who needs addresses when you've got information on family like that.


travel through some farm roads and you will get to a place of madness

she talked of how they were going to remodel the memory out of the place
new paint, new floors, new appliances

but everyone knows the memory is in the bones of that house
and no new colors and upgraded, hired hands can take that away

the bodies that exist in that home have aged,
changed,
slowed down or sped up

all the accouterments exists that make it a family
unless you dig around and find the faults, levy's and dams that hold it together and pull it a part..

you can try to run only so far before the past and reality of everything slaps you in the face.
somehow it never forgets your face.

it has never forgotten mine

and i'm here now putting myself back together

yet trying to rebuild my emotional strength to face the witnessing of the realtor
in his yard-
who shares my name
and the 133 lb man
who once towered over life
and all of us
who now whispered to me
he's ready....

i know it's just the way it goes
all these things
and i invite this heaviness in when i return

and that camera taking pictures
forces me to remember what i'm inclined to forget.

none of us are above going through these parts of life
and i alone am not facing these changes that are coming and those that have occurred

i just question whatever happened to the sun that used to shine down on all our smiling faces
when we were all together

where are those pictures
inside my head
or on paper?

i guess the beauty in this is that i get to choose what i carry on with me

some of the places people carried with them didn't get the picture perfect ending that the photos make it appear that they had

i've lost those photos anyway-
and the only ones i've got now
are in my head

and soon
even that is unsafe to time
as my memory filters out things forgettable and unforgettable

these are the things and spaces that we must occupy
if we choose to remain signed up for this life
i remind myself that ultimately the hard parts are worth all the good parts culminated
that i can't seem to get a hold of right now

i'm fairly sure of it
even though i'm wavering a bit...