at an open grave

At an Open Grave
—for Richard M. West

Unlike a song
or a piece of music,
or even some of your poems,
I have never stood before
a painting or sculpture
and wept.

Van Gogh’s work does not move me to tears.

When I saw you in a grocery store, unshaven and confused,
I stopped my shopping to say hello.
You didn’t remember me.

We spent hundreds of ferry trips together
crossing back and forth to our jobs in Seattle.
We talked about death every morning
over coffee, surviving on hope.

Heaven was a long shot.

Retirement was a way forward
but the shimmering wall of recognition
we longed for seemed to recede as we grew older.

Our journey, instead, brings us to this doorway into the earth.

Today I saw blossoms on the cherry tree
finish their bloom and fly away,
a few petals at a time.