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Posts Tagged ‘death anniversary’

After a Morning of Crossing Things from a List

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2025| 12 Comments »

Then comes the moment
when not one thing is more important
than walking to the river
and finding a wide rock in the middle
of the flow where I can sit
and speak to you.
There’s not much to say
these days besides I love you,
I miss you. So I say the paltry words,
six inadequate syllables.
As always they are sorry translations
for the infinite songs of my heart.
So I sit on the rock and listen;
silence the language you speak now.
I’ve been learning its tender
conjugations—you were. You are.
You have been. You will have been.
Is it true they all sound the same?
I practice silence long enough
the river moves through me
touching all I cannot say.
I don’t know how I know
when it is time to rise.
The silence holds me.
I teach the silence your name.

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Poem & thank you

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 14, 2024| 26 Comments »

Dear Friends, 

Three years ago today I wrote a letter saying that a terrible tragedy had happened to our family. Two weeks after, I shared this letter about the death of our son. Since that day, I have felt so much love, so much support, so much kindness, so much compassion from you. And today I can see so so clearly how you carried me through this most difficult time with your love, prayers, letters. Thank you. Thank you. I am so grateful for every one of you that has sent love, silence, words, thoughtfulness. It has meant so much to me. I thank you. I honor you. I wish you deep peace. Thank you. Thank you. 
Love, 
Rosemerry

*

On the Anniversary of Your Death
 
 
Your dad and I walked. Walked
for hours. Walked through deep woods.
Walked to tree line. Walked higher
than that to the place where larkspur
still bloom late summer, where
the paintbrush are still dusky pink
and creamy white, where marmots
sit atop tall rocks and squeak. We walked
and I could not not see the beauty.
Everywhere, the deep purple gentian
unfolding. Everywhere, the melted snow
flowing. Everywhere, beauty, so much beauty.
As I walked, I invited the past to join me.
Memories of tears, police and silence waded
with me through wildflowers up to my shoulders
and skinny-dipped beside purple penstemon
in the high alpine stream. Memories
of you as newborn, you as a boy, you
as a teen, they all joined me in eating
wild raspberries more tart than sweet.
Memories of how your sisters and father
and I have stayed alive hiked with me
beneath waterfalls and along sheer cliffs.
And so it is your death is always
here and not here. I saw myself
a gentian, opening, though frost
is coming soon. I saw myself a rivulet
that flows through it all. I saw myself
as mother, and marveled how you
are all ages at once to me now.  
And when I cried, I kept walking.
Except when I stopped to cry.
All day, I put one foot in front of the other.
There is no wonder in this, and yet,
 all day, the ache of it, the wonder.

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In the Days Leading Up to His Death Anniversary

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 12, 2023| 17 Comments »


 
 
Strange how the body remembers
everything about this time of year—
the angle of light, the hue of sky,
 
the scent of almost rain,
the shape of the green beans
twisting on the vine. It remembers
 
the cool of the basement,
the curl of my hand as it slid
into his hand, remembers
 
the tilt of the hill where we drove,
the droning of bees in the sunflowers,
the brief blaze of fireflies.
 
It’s as if the shock of his death
opened every door of every sense
so I was flooded with life,
 
imprinted with the thisness of everything.
In these days leading up to his death,
life rings me, bell-like, again and again,
 
and I chime, charged with memory,
amazed how my own emptiness
is what allows for the world
 
to make in me such music,
 
so vital, so clear, so raw.

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