A poem from me and one from Pablo

What I wrote for Sue...

Why do we always wait
until its too late
then time is up
and we’re scrambling
to say all the things
we should have said
in the moment
but the moment
is past tense
like Pangaea,
memories of continents connected
where now there’s only
ocean and broken land
beneath the dark blanket
of an ever changing sky.

I never once heard you sing,
but I watched your star shine
the illumination of
a constellation in flux
living the life
you were meant to live

If we had known
it was the last time
we’d see each other
would we have had
another glass of wine,
laughed a little longer
held on a little tighter
to the calling
that had brought us together
the pursuit of something higher
a learned peace
a strange fire
Would you have shed your shyness
and picked up your guitar
and sang for me
with the clairvoyance of
how much it would
end up meaning to me
Or would you just laugh
like you always did
and say “maybe some other time”
knowing time was finite
and the mysteries of what if
always seem better parting gifts
than what is,
but what was,
was all I needed
Friendship

No, I never once heard you sing,
but I felt your heart shine
the illumination of your best self
the spirit of your laugh
the words you might say
when no one was looking at you too hard
I heard your heart sing
And it was beautiful.


What Pablo Neruda wrote:
Sonnet XCIV

If I die, survive me with such sheer force
that you make the pallor and the coldness rage;
from south to south lift your indelible eyes,
from sun to sun dream through your singing mouth.
I don't want your laughter or you steps to waver,
I don't want my heritage of joy to die.
Don't call up my person. I am absent.
Live in my absence as if in a house,
Absence is such a large house
that you'll walk through the walls,
hang pictures on the air.
Absence is a house so transparent
that I, lifeless, will see you, living,
and if you suffer, my love, I will die again.