Gretna revisited (for G.T.W.)

warm June breezes our faces

like memories

feet scuff gravel street

of childhood

old ties of kinship invisible

between us

like roots under these massive

trunks and

we take the new path behind the

public school

these playgrounds marked my knees and lodged

my soul

and all around us the green growth of

another summer

in this Manitoba hot spot and

I recall

it is almost one year since

your diagnosis   

Psalm XIII - lilacs

perfect purple pointed tenderness of

blossoms

profuse embarrassment of

perfumed summer

air breezing across lawn owning these warm lazy days of

June

peasant hedge made royal with the tender grace of

colour

Relay for Life 2018

bright dazzling dips behind trees

vestige warmth remains

like that hand holding yours

now gone

and iconic windmill begins to glow

reaching out veins of hope to the world

that circles in orbit on illumined path

in ones and twos and threes

they are small children in wagons

and couples holding hands

and grandparents shuffling the gravel

determined unwavering

powering the huge stones that

slowly (too slowly) grind out answers

to this steady chorus of untimely goodbyes