4/15

Some days the quiet is reassuring and I glide,

Some what, easily through them, only to come a cropper

On heartache.

Some days are only an incessant wearing of grief

On a soul hard placed by the abyss barely standing,

Consumed with unremitting woe.

4/14

Under sheets cool and weightless, I lie sleepless and too tired.

No one to hold me encompassed in body warmth, only alone

Cloaked in grief.

4/13

I am alone, confused, heartbroken, unsettled and sad beyond tears.

For my failings, I can not consider tears a comfort opened to me.

I did fail to recognize

Jack was not well, I have paid so dearly for that.

Will have that lading ever on my soul. I failed and will need

To learn to live with that.

4/12

A dear friend will also soon have a similar procedure

With better doctors, better care, better outcome

And come home.

4/11

Sometimes I live in the country.

Sometimes I live in town. Sometimes I take a great notion

To jump in that river and drown.

4/10

Spent a few hours shooting with our friend,

His quiet word guided me, breathe slowly out, stilling thoughts to you.

I shot well.

4/9

How does one negotiate this life alone?

Really, must I accept loneliness as bosom close?

Ah, time slowed.

4/8

Tonight I have laid aside your watch, laid it aside well my finding.

In some ways as others will lay you aside after the end of this month.

I will, can, not.

Tonight I must lay near my heart truths, wishfulness will lead me astray

There is no one but me will get me through this morass, mine alone

To traverse, to decide a path.

But tonight, friends, dear, do help me navigate this muddle.

Some by lending their strength, others by stating their limits.

I have both.

4/7

Lent a helping hand, load horses, grass cut. house cleaned

People come and go, bells of arrival, I await Joel's, your dear friend.

I give that such weight now.

4/6

A friend says he is done mourning you and on a level I can not reach

I do understand. He chooses to remember you with love and fondness.

Chooses now to go on.

Reminding me of all I will never have with you.

That others, too, will go on, leaving you, leaving you, how, leaving you

And I alone.

4/5

Driving solo is a way of using time, a shallow use for sure.

For awareness must attend the task, leaving contemplation to shoal

Lightly on the surface.

4/4

This sunday morning up early to ride a friend's half-bad mare.

We cover half her 300 acres of mountain pasture as the sun rose,

Not a half-bad way to spend an Easter.

4/3

You would have gladly gone to this wedding, met this bride

One of your boys steps onward in his life, he will learn life entwined.

I miss so not being at your side.

Our gift to him, a painting in a frame, created by us, and your words,

Your offering to your father, dear love, and perhaps, memory of us

Standing always together.

4/2

Long drives and snarled traffic, so what. What does destination mean?

Who will really care if I arrive? There or home, what is home now?

You are not there.

Long drives allow for tears to freely fall.

4/1

Morning slips in quietly, a soft haze over the hayfields.

A cat sleeps nestled by me in this bed too empty.

No joke.