for Kyra
She faced, for an hour, a mountain lion.
She made noise. She spoke to it.
Eventually she sang to it.
Today, I return to the place where
my friend learned that just because
something can kill you doesn’t mean it will.
Eventually, the cancer did take her.
It’s true. But first she lived with it.
For years. First she played cello,
belly danced, snuggled with cats
and climbed with goats. First she sat
with me on the couch and giggled
and snuggled and read. First she knit
me a deep red shawl because I’m afraid of red.
First we sat by the river and made daisy chains
for each other’s long dark hair.
It sounds so improbable, but she met
the great cat and the cancer and her life
and her friends in the same great way—
with gentleness. She carried
a big stick not to swing but to pull
through the brush to make music.
She was a listener, a walker, a maker,
a lover of life. It sounds so improbable,
but she valued kindness above all else.
In the end, the mountain lion, after letting
my friend know full well she’d been seen,
it folded its ears and walked away.
In the end, the cancer traveled to her bones.
In the end, my friend will be known
for her gentleness, for how the tenderest touch,
the smallest note of love, the one most honest word
is the best way to make the whole world lean in.