2/20

How dear to drive the long quiet roads to dinner with friends

Who call to say come over, we're cooking a bit, come join us.

And feel normal awhile

We, my Dear, have done this in blissful sweet unawareness.

Opened our house to another because it felt right and pleasant to us.

Easy to give, deep felt for doing.

2/19

Friends say white feathers drifting down from the sky

Are a sign, a gift from angels on high. They are watching

And give hope.

This morn white feathers fell to my feet, still on the goose

Who fell, expiring by my feet. Do I need so much hope or

Is my plight so dire?

2/18

May 27th, 1887 from the Evening Telegram, St John's Newfoundland:

At the grave of a noted Osage, the Indians looked to the sun

and prayed:

Jesus give him a fine woman and many ponies, give him plenty of

trinkets & a good gun. Give him lots of fun & no bad recollections.

Jesus give him all the good in your country.

My Dear, God give you fine ponies to ride the skies C. Russell paints.

Sweet rest, joy, lots of fun and no bad recollections.

Wait for your woman.

2/17

The afternoon sunlight drapes across the hayfields

Into which drop geese, fluttering shifts of bright and dark

Land in undulating waves of bird.

2/16

To my friend's gentle query: Compunction describes my transgression.

Shame and regret for not doing more remains lashed through me.

I must learn to live with it.

I'll learn to walk, to cook, to move though the world alone.

And learn how strong my single friends are in their aloness.

I did not know.

These next steps frighten me, where and how do I go now?

How does sweet life continue through this wilderness morass?

I hardly know.

2/15

Taxes require a first go round of wine just to peruse papers.

My eyes hurt following your careful tracks

Through territory foreign.

2/14

2AM no sleep, only silent tears. Where the warm arms

Around me, where the sweet words written with love, humor.

Where the love swept round me.

Where now is ache and emptiness. I am alone

Without your voice, your touch, your eyes that always rested

Well on me.

No longer can we lay wrapped together snuggled close.

I can no longer hear whispers of love for and to each other.

Only can long for you.

2/13

The winds have blown my love away, Ian Tyson sings

Of horses sweet, roping, all tinged minor. Sings where I no longer can

For my silent partner.

2/12

4 years ago at the settlement table, I wanted to say: Let's take the money

And run, please, uneasy, uneasy from the start of this, apprehensive

For you, for us.

Misgivings hovered in the shadows of my mind of this move, of going.

Uncertain, anxious for dangers unseen, for troubling auras.

But not for us, not for you.

How unsightful, how foolish I was not to heed.

2/11

Heart friends bring not joy, mine no time for joy, but kindness

With care. Assuage brief brackets of moments from time forlorn,

Rest amid supportive seconds.

Winds lift a blanket of snow geese winging broad fields of broken corn.

A sight seen only this day by lonely me. Tears seep down cheeks

Chapped by remorse.

Under sun blushed skies, wings stiffen for landing, geese disappear

Among stalks, a field filled to emptiness. Imperceptible to me

As now are you.

I weep, geese, friends, you, move on.

2/10

A quiet voice in my ear speaks of sorrow, of lives loved well,

Of being alone. Of a threatening drift of currents unknown,

Of handling challenge.

Of the need to learn and taking decision again. Of finding comfort

In the moment, of knowing the next hours hold little, that the now

Harbors maybe a mite more:

Found in a sweet phrase. Or the help of hands

That quietly bring a moment of calm, of peace, of order

However brief.

2/9

Snow, wind, cold, a century's more record howling across my soul

Score furrows to the core.

Closes my throat to speech.

Alone in the forever now, can but wish respite

Some friends, thankfully, can dally time loops

To encircle me.

Succor against biting winds, sustenance for unfilled spirit.

Hands that hold however briefly,

Friends sustain.

2/8

Others speak of being touched, of feeling their loves gone.

Pretty sweetness. I know only the absence, my failing or his censure?

Either, my worth is nil.

From that moment no song in my soul, no smooth singing of hours.

No path for grief bound hard to let fly a cry, to cover miles

Of cold ground

Under flint spark stars over frozen marsh, my scream rises.

May it reach every reed, every tree and ear by windows closed to cold,

To all the broad, dark skies.

Hark not to song

Hark to my voice hoarse

Hark to sorrow

2/7

Sunrise beauty I see only as tribulation, underscores my low abilities

Little knowledge, little cleverness, little chance of fixing,

How can I get these things to work?

A pet deer from down the road, survived hunt season, pads quietly alone

Avoids shoveled snow, licks her back, thick-furred, fat, I think of you

And of tamed pets loosed into winter,

Snowfall this season of distress, cold on the land, colder on the heart.

Where the tools to bring me out from this frigid, sere dominion?

Where to go.

2/6

Late December, chilled by a window: "When will this cold go."

No intuition, no harbinger how complete cold can be.

Walked to the kitchen and made lunch

This winter holds hard, holds cruel, no pardon, my heart pounds.

My warmth lost, never saw it slipping, never knew its meaning.

Never saw and lost all.

Surrounded, enveloped, swathed in shards iced brittle, winter gripped

With detritus devised to hurt deeply, grief cut heavy with regret.

Sorrow hoar'd hard with rue.