Grief layered over grief this year,
what else can you do but probe the darkness,
for the next move. The clock blinks, shifts ahead,
something to count on like light
easing through window blinds. You notice
across the street, trees turned brilliant
with your own tossing, the Gingko’s gold dome
as if Midas dropped by, the crimson splash
of liquid amber. December’s gifts
though 2020 has left you beside yourself.
Where do you go from here, day’s first Zoom?
as if months haven’t flown since Covid
confined you at home?
Do our loved ones wonder what happened,
looking down or up at us? Transformed
to spirit, are they perplexed to see us trapped
in our rectangles of light? They dash, being air,
sometimes shadow you put your hand through,
and here you are impossibly connected,
waving to relatives in another state,
a friend seated at his desk in Cambodia.
.
You hear the dead don’t ask questions.
They tell us things, like they’re sailing
the highest swells created or skiing the Himalyas
wingless, and yet no farther out of reach
than those stars, or your own breath. You step
into dark, struck with their light and lift
through space into Love, no surprise
enduring since the beginning of time.
Perie Longo
December, 2020